Arthur Edward Waite

Devil-Worship in France Arthur Edward Waite

Devil-Worship in France (Or, the Question of Lucifer), by British poet and mystic Arthur Edward Waite, was originally published in 1896. The work is an examination of the most sensational hoax in the history of Parisian journalism. The Taxil hoax, where Taxil and a fabricated associate, Diana Vaughan, designed a scandal in the 1890s by fabricating a wicked occult sect connected to freemasonry called the "Palladian Masons", who were alleged to induct women and perform evil acts of what was called "Luciferian Spiritism" upon them. This wild story caused public hysteria against anything and everything occult. A. E. Waite responded satirically with this work as a response, asking questions that Taxil could not answer, forcing him to admit that the reports were a hoax designed to both embarrass Freemasonry and the Catholic Church.