The Taxil Hoax and Satanic Freemasonry Part 2 (Premium E246) Sample
In the late 19th century a Frenchman pulled off one of the greatest hoaxes of all time and inspired countless conspiracy theories about Freemasonry that still circulate today. The man, who went by the pseudonym Leo Taxil, started his career by publishing several texts smearing the Pope and the Catholic Church. But then he switched sides. He claimed he converted to Catholicism and to prove his devotion he started publishing anti-Masonic texts.These new works included wild stories about a secret satanic sect with freemasonry called Palladism. Despite the fact that these stories are far beyond the limits of believability, they were taken seriously by the Catholic Church. Taxil finally admitted that his multiple books about satanism in Freemasonry were all part of an elaborate, 12-year-long-hoax.
In the second part of the two-part series, we discuss Leo Taxil’s multiple books which supposedly exposed Satanism in Freemasonry, why he called Charleston, South Carolina the “Luciferian Rome,” and the dramatic public confession that sent shockwaves among Catholics and Freemason alike.
REFERENCES
Dickie, John. The Craft: How the Freemasons Made the Modern World. Public Affairs, 2020
Ziegler, Robert. Satanism, magic and mysticism in fin-de-siècle France. Springer, 2012.
Van Luijk, Ruben. Children of Lucifer: The origins of modern religious Satanism. Oxford University Press, 2016
Introvigne, Massimo. "Satanism: a social history.". Brill, 2016.
The Confession of Leo Taxil
https://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/taxil_confessed.html
Mellor, Alec. A Hoaxer of Genius
https://skirret.com/papers/ahoaxerofgenius-leotaxil.html
Wikisource: The Works of Leo Taxil
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Auteur:L%C3%A9o_Taxil
Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)
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QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
Welcome to the QAA Podcast, Premium Episode 246, The Taxel Hoax and Satanic Freemasonry, Part 2.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Rokitansky, Julian Field, and Travis View.
So, in the last Premium episode, we covered the beginning of the story of the man known as Leo Taxel.
He was a Frenchman who, in the late 19th century, published a lot of scandalous pamphlets and books attacking the Catholic Church, which got him in some legal trouble.
He was also an effective hoaxter, tricking people into believing that there was a rash of shark attacks in Marseille, and that there was a lost Roman city at the bottom of Lake Geneva.
But shortly after the market for his anti-Catholic writings started to dry up a bit and the Pope asked people to expose Freemasonry, he claimed to have a change of heart.
He professed conversion to Catholicism and, because he was a very tricky man, convinced priests and higher-level Catholics that he was sincere.
And with buy-in from the Catholic press, he started to instead publish books attacking Freemasonry.
This was the start of a 12-year-long career spinning an elaborate mythology about Freemasonry that some people still believe is true.
He started his career as an anti-Masonic publisher by writing a series of books in the years 1885 and 1886 under the broad title of Complete Revelations on Freemasonry.
Taxel promised to reveal sensational facts, using his experience in Freemasonry as a selling point,
even though he had only been a low-level apprentice. In fact, he was only in the first degree of,
like, I think usually like 33 degrees, so. But he used this, he said that this was enough to
reveal everything that was going on. The Freemasons must have just looked on
in absolute horror, like, what the fuck is he doing now?
The books were a combination of accurate descriptions of Masonic ceremonies and the Lodge systems, but he also added dramatic embellishments plus the occasional outright fabrication.
Mmm the spice of life.
Now this is pretty par for the course as far as like Masonic exposés throughout history goes it's always like it's like oh it's like lots and lots of real stuff but also some like you know spicy stuff but he was different because he had he number one he was willing to go to places other conspiracists weren't willing to go and he had a really wild imagination.
The first book, released in two volumes, was called The Three-Point Brothers.
It claimed that Freemasonry's true philosophy was nothing but gross pantheism, to which the adept is gradually brought through a series of ridiculous masquerades, starting with the glorification of the material and ending with the adoration of Satan.
The Three-Point Brothers, isn't that what you call you and your buddy playing MPA2K?
I knew that was coming.
I mean, we wish.
We wish that's what we were called.
But I think we would be the three-point taker brothers.
You're the Two Point Sisters.
Did I ever tell you guys about the time I did hard drugs in a Masonic Lodge?
Yes.
Yes.
Good, okay.
Alright, no need, no need.
Do we remember what episode that was in?
I don't, of course I don't.
And I'm sure so many people will be like, come on, let him tell it again!
No, no, no, we don't do stories.
Only in my real life do I tell stories three, four, five times.
On the show, only once.
Two or three, I think, is the usual.
Ha ha!
Usually I'll let it slide like a couple of times before I harshly bring the hammer down.
Taxel said that ordinary masons were unaware of these truths and that the the real truth was disclosed to them as they got higher and higher in the order.
Now this was a strategic move because what happens is that most masons will go like, they don't talk about anything about Satan in the lodge that I go to.
And then he was like, no, no, you're not high enough.
You haven't reached the, you're not quite there yet.
You haven't reached the, like, Killers of the Flower Moon level where De Niro belts you.
Yeah, you gotta pay 200 coffers and pass go.
And then you'll be, you know, led into the secrets of Xenu and the bodies in the volcanoes.
Coffers, that's the currency?
That's what they called coins, you know, back in that day in France.
Okay.
It's called "faire."
I think the coffers are just the boxes they put them in, but that's fine.
Taxel also said that there was a hidden meaning behind the Masonic concept of the "Great
Architect of the Universe."
Now, Freemasons publicly said that the phrase "Great Architect of the Universe" is
just a neutral way to refer to a deity, whatever deity and whatever form that any individual
Freemason may believe in.
But according to Taxel, the Great Architect of the Universe was none other than Satan.
I mean, when they're right, they're right.
Yeah, architect doesn't necessarily have a positive connotation to it.
It could be an evil architect.
Yeah, I've watched Prometheus.
I know what the builders did.
Yeah, a hairbringer of, yeah, construction doom.
Harbinger?
Yeah, a hairbringer.
Space Harrier.
Here they come with the toupees!
One of Leo Taxel's more notorious fabrications was the claim that masons who wished to be initiated into the higher degrees had to sacrifice a sheep which they believed to be a human being.
Here's one translation of that claim.
Before a man is admitted to the higher degrees, he is blindfolded and taken into a room where a live sheep is lying on the floor.
The animal's mouth and feet are secured and it is clean-shaven so that its skin feels to the touch like that of a human being.
Next to the animal, a man is placed who breathes heavily, feigning to struggle against imaginary enemies.
The candidate is given to understand that the sheep's body is that of a disloyal mason who gave away secrets of the order and must die according to some ancient law.
The candidate being made executioner, as a warning to said disloyal mason.
Then he is given a big knife, and after some ceremony, is persuaded to quote, kill the traitor.
That is, plunge the knife repeatedly into the body of the sheep, which he imagines to be that of an unknown human being, his brother.
Damn, I mean, it's pretty twisted.
Sort of reminds me of when I was... I joined a fraternity briefly in college, and they did all sorts of trickery during the initiation.
No live animals or anything, but they did this whole rigmarole about how you actually didn't get in.
You get brought before a panel of guys, and they're like, sorry, you didn't get into the house, bro.
You know, in not so many words.
And then there are all these brothers that are like pretending to come to your defense.
I remember during the whole thing, I was like, Oh, thank God.
Like, I don't even know if I like these guys anyway.
Anyways, maybe this is a blessing in disguise that I didn't get in.
And at the end, they have you stand in a ring and they're like, well, everybody who was chosen to be part of the house tonight, please take one step backward.
And you feel and you're blindfolded, of course, through this whole thing.
So you feel the two shoulders next to you, like, take a step back and you're like, oh, great.
Like, I'm the fucking loser.
Like, great.
This is embarrassing.
But then they take the blindfold off and it's like all set up.
They're like, everybody got in.
And there was a little bit.
Yeah, there was like a little bit of disappointment there for me because I was thinking like, oh, maybe I don't have to pay the fifteen hundred dollar initiation fee.
Take off your blindfold.
Jake, this whole time you've been masturbating a sheep.
What other stuff did we have to do?
We had to hold a brick out with our straight arm for a really long time till it got very heavy and uncomfortable.
We had to eat some very spicy food.
Alright, let me finish reading this quote.
Thus, every mason is a murderer in spirit at least, if not actually, because sometimes treacherous masons take the place of the animal.
Hmm.
Wow.
So like sometimes they just do it the way they were tricking people thought to think they were doing it.
That's okay.
Sometimes, sometimes they actually just have get initiated into the brotherhood by murdering a dude blindfolded.
Yeah, that's what Jake did too.
He killed a guy called like Caleb.
Yeah, I thought I was eating like a really spicy chili.
But in actuality, it was like the intestines of like a brother who like, you know, maybe like wasn't as dope.
Bro, we fucking made you do blood libel.
Oh man, you've killed a Christian baby.
You've been listening to a sample of a premium episode of the QAA Podcast.
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Travis, why is that such a good deal?
Well, Jake, you get hundreds of additional episodes of the QAA Podcast for just $5 per month.
For that very low price, you get access to over 200 premium episodes, plus all of our miniseries.
That includes 10 episodes of Man Clan with Julian and Annie, 10 episodes of Perverts with Julian and Liv, 10 episodes of The Spectral Voyager with Jake and Brad, plus 20 episodes of Trickle Down with me, Travis View.
It's a bounty of content and the best deal in podcasting.
Travis, for once, I agree with you.
And I also agree that people could subscribe by going to patreon.com slash QAA.
