Page:Devil-Worship in France 1896.djvu/202

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DEVIL-WORSHIP IN FRANCE

he immediately advises us himself that the exercise of the three cardinal virtues to the profit of Lucifer is the sum of the whole mystery and the real sous-entendu of Martinism. The Masonic grades from Apprentice, Companion, Master, through Knight Rose-Cross to Knight Kadosch, and so forward, are exploited after the same manner by the baldest of processes, that of inverting everything. For example, the sacred word of the 33rd degree in the French Rite, namely, Sovereign Grand Inspector General, is Deus meumque Jus. That signifies, says Jean Kostka, that "Lucifer is the sole God and that the material, like the spiritual, world of right belongs to him." If you inquire the process of extraction by which he gets that result, he answers: "I must admit that I have had only a general intuition, but I assure you that it is immense," and he will immediately cite you a password, invite you to take every letter individually, and fit to it just that word which, by another intuition, he perceives belongs to it, when you will see for yourself. Thus, the Kadosch term Nekam, which signifies