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At the same time, so far as I am aware, there are few materials forthcoming for its history. In some way which remains wholly untraceable this order is inferred to have been connected by more than its name with the legendary Palladium of the Knights Templars, well known under the title of Baphomet.
Every part of that holy and beautiful body must be adored; he sought for terms of extravagant praise, he bent his soul and mind low before her, licking the dust under her feet, abased and yet rejoicing as a Templar before the image of Baphomet.
The unhappy Baphomet, dismayed by these extreme proceedings, vanished entirely, and, no expense being spared through the whole of the costly tableaux, Lucifer manifested on a throne of diamonds, but whether the gems were furnished from the treasury of Avernus or from the pockets of bamboozled Freemasons through the wide world, les renseignements do not state.
The proceedings began, the skulls were placed on the tables; Adonaï and his Christ were cursed impressively, Lucifer as solemnly blessed and invoked at the altar of Baphomet.
Despite the sensational picture which emblazons the title-page, where a full-length Baphomet is directing a décolletée Templar-Mistress through the pillars Jakin and Bohaz, there is not a single page in the whole vast compilation which shows any connection between Satanism and Masonry until towards the close, when an adroit tax is levied on the still vaster storehouse of Doctor Bataille.
For a period exceeding sixty years we hear little of the legendary Palladium; but in 1801 the Israelite Isaac Long is said to have carried the original Baphomet and the skull of the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay from Paris to Charleston in the United States, and was afterwards concerned in the reconstruction of the Scotch Rite of Perfection and of Herodom under the name of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, which subsequently became widely diffused, and it is stated that the lodge of the thirty-third degree of the Supreme Council of Charleston has been the parent of all others, and is therefore, in this rite, the first supreme council of the entire globe.
The experiment disillusionized the assembly and they thoughtfully repaired to the seventh temple, which, being sacred to Fire, was equipped with a vast central furnace surmounted by a chimney and containing a gigantic figure of Baphomet; in spite of the intolerable heat pervading the entire chamber this idol contrived to preserve its outlines and to glow without pulverising.
"But, your Honors," Coombes protested, "we can't go through the farce of trying a dead man." "People of the Colony of Baphomet versus Jamshar Singh, Deceased, charge of arson and sabotage, A.E. 604," the Honorable Gustavus Adolphus Brannhard interrupted. Yes, you could find a precedent in colonial law for almost anything.
Seated in front of the Baphomet, Miss Vaughan apostrophised Lucifer sympathetically on the subject of the unpleasing form in which he was represented by his worshippers, and as she did so the little flames intensified, while floor and ceiling caught fire after the same ghostly incandescent fashion; a great dry heat filled the vast apartment, and, still spreading, the flames covered her chair, her garments, her entire person.
Diana Vaughan remained alone, in the presence of the Palladium, namely, our poor old friend Baphomet, whom his admirers persist in representing with a goat's head, whereas he is the archetype of the ass.
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