CHAPTER XXIIL—AN ENGLISH MASON SUPREME MAGUS, OR

MAGICIAN.
Thanks to DIANA, two British LITERATI, Waite, of the DEVIL WORSHIP, and Legge, of the CONTEMPORARY RE-
_VIEW, in their zeal for the spotlessness of an English Mason
Supreme Magician—Magus—exposed to the profane gaze on the PILORI of public opinion, the now famous Doctor W.
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Wynn Westcott, of Camden Road, 396, London N. He is there, not as a citizen of England and an official of Middle- sex, but only as a Masonic Magician, accused of Luciferian- ism. We do not profer an accusation of Black Luciferianism by the Black Art, but that of White Luciferianism by the White Art. The first is not sufficiently proved and we hold fast to the old adage: NEMO MALUS NISI PROBETUR ; the second seems to us fairly authenticated. Dr. Wynn West- cott, A. E. Waite notwithstanding, is a Magician of a semi- Masonic order, which, on the list of Bro, Crowe, is one of the Masonic degrees now recognized as legitimate, not spurious nor worthless. As a member of that semi-Masonic order or legitimate Masonic degree, the Doctor is Supreme Magus, according to the rites and ceremonies of the Mediaeval Brethren of the Rosy Cross. He devotes himself to the study and researches into the ancicnt mysteries ; he does it not as an ordinary literary man, for the public, but for a certain class of scientists and scholars, on subjects pertaining to Freemasonry and secret societies ; the results of his studies are not to be communicated to outsiders of the Rosicrucian society, which is essentially an exclusive institution. We can safely range Dr Westcott among the men of whom his learned Brother Gould said :
“Being learned in astrology, alchemy and Kabalistic lore “senerally, they were alsc Freemasons, and took advantage “of this circumstance to indoctrinate their colleagues with “their own fantastic belief, and so, under the cloak and by “means of the organization of Freemasonry, to preserve tenets which might otherwise have fallen into complete oblivion.”
It is easy for Dr. Westcott to do it, for he is the Supreme Magus of a semi-Masonic society acknowledged as one of the legitimate Masonic degrees. When the Mystico-Magus Transcendentalist accused Diana of slandering his CONFRERE Transcendentalist of Camden Road, we feared it was a case of two Lucifers slandering PRO and CON. At all events Mr. Waite was simply ridiculous when he threatened Diana with an English jury, making a large demand upon her re- puted American dollars. Indeed England is not so badly in want of French FRANCS as to let her gentlemen and officials, when they are not attacked in their capacity of .English gentlemen and officials, resort to such shift. Let us pass to some matter somewhat more to our purpose.
DIS MOI QUI TU HANTE JE TE DIRAIS QUI TU ES. Ac-
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cordingly let us look at the haunts our Doctor frequented in his capacity of Masonic Magician. He would never have frequented them in his capacity of English gentleman and Middlesex official. We had found him catalogued under the Banner of Light, Bosworth street, 9, Boston, and had paid no attention to him. We never dreamed him to be an English gentleman, and much less a respected official, until Mr. AE. Waite, in his DEviIL Worsuip, and Mr F. Legge, in the CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, made him conspicuous as a Magician Mason. Verily there, in Boston, was Dr. Wynn Westcott in a swarm which seemed to have issued from the pit below. Lucifer was there with his baptism of fire, giving his autobiographical sketch Satan was also in the swarm, in a biography, by G. Graves publishing an historical exposi- tion of the Devil and his Fiery Dominion. There appeared the Devil in his pulpit by the Rev. Taylor.* But there were, on the other hand, Apollonius of Tyana, identified as the Christian Jesus; Isis unveiled by Blavatsky, as Diana was by Waite ; an angel whispering for searches after truth. Lo! There is indeed A. E. Waite, in his Golden Stairs ; by the Tales of the Wonder World for Children, he teaches English youth how to transcend from the Geomany of F. Hartman, to the Astrology of Raphael. The English youths in their transcendental journey are guided by the Palmistry of E. J. E.Henderson. All these and many others, EI|USDEM FARINAE, were swarming under the Banner of Light. Voltaire and Rob. Ingersoll were there almost as two SAINTS N’Y TOUCHE.
I own that I have purchased some Masonic, Magic and Luciferian lore under the Banner of Light ; it was for me the handiest of the 80 occultist shops of Masonic, Mystico-Mag- ical, Luciferian literature in the list of Le Diable-au-X1Xeme Siecle, p. 723.
In the matter of golden, astral, weird, and blood-curdling tales, we own that our compatriots, the semi-Teutonic Hacks, and the Marseillais Jogand, in their Diable-au-XIXe Siecle, and Diana Vaughan, have been only pale and often insipid plagiaries of Waite, Wynn Westcott, Eliphas Levis, Thomas Vaughan, and all their CONFRERES in and out of the Temple of the Masonic Great Architect.
At the Banner of Light, just under the “Nightmare
“Tales, some of the weirdest, most blood-curdling stories ever
* Some [5 years ago a rough miner of Kootenay, B. C., informed the writer that the cowboys, east of the Rocky Mountains, were imbibing a devilish morality from a Devil pulpit.
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“conceived told, with graphic power and intensity,” by H. P. Bavatsky, we find :
“NUMBERS: Their occult pomer and mystic virtue. “Being a RESUME of the views of Kabalists, Pythagoreans, “Adepts of India, Chaldean Magi, and Mediaval Magicians, “by W. Wynn Westcott, FRA ROSAE CrusIs, F. I. S.”
A. E Waite in his Devil Worship, has informed us that :
“The Masonic reverence for certain numbers, which are “apparently arbitrary in themselves, is in reality connected “with the most recondite and curious system of mystic “methodical philosophy.”
We gave, in chapter xvi, a sample of this Masonic rever- ence by the 80 Literati. Dr. Westcott has also translated and published for the English craftsmen The Magical Ritual of the REGNUM SANCTUM, interpreted by Tarot Trumps.
To give an idea of this Tarot, let us quote from Waite’s Digest, p. 244:
“Of all oracles the Tarot is the most astonishing in its ‘results because every possible combination of this universal “key of the Kabala gives the oracles of science and truth as “its solutions, on account of the analogical precision of its “numbers and figures. This miraculous and unique book of “the ancient Magi is an instrument of divination which may “be employed with complete confidence ; its information is “always correct, at least in a certain sense, and when it pre- “dicts nothing it reveals hidden things, and gives the most “sage advice to those who consult it.”
Dr. Westcott could assure Messrs. Waite and Legge that Diana never copied a Magical Ritual in his house, but these crafty magicians and literati were cautious enough not to make any allusion to the magical rituals in possession of the Supreme Magus of Camden Road. He is the Chief, the Supreme Magus of the English Luciferian Freemason Oc- cultists, and therefore of the English Freemasons, Luciferian, as far as magicians are [.uciferians
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