Now, it goes without saying that a writer with these methods is not to be taken seriously, but it is worth while to appreciate the quality of intelligence which is received with acclamation by the Catholic Church in France as soon as it comes over from the enemy. “Lucifer Unmasked” appeared originally in the pages of the newspaper La Vérité. It was immediately reproduced in Spanish by the Union Catolica; the clerical press boomed full-mouthed salvos in its honour, and his Eminence Cardinal Parocchi has blessed book or author, or both, and believes that it will make a great impression, “undoubtedly contributing to enlighten minds and lead them back to God.”
Jean Kostka, as already indicated, is a spiritual sentimentalist; he has passed by a rapid transition common to such natures from the Gnostic transcendental initiate to the pious Catholic devotee, and he will make an excellent Lourdes pilgrim. As there will be no need to recur to him again, it will be permissible to justify my criticism by some account of his personal experiences. M. Papus speaks of him as the founder and patriarch of the Gnostic Church. Of this same patriarch and primate Jean Kostka also speaks as of another person, recites the facts of his conversion, and hopes he will do better work for the Church of God than he has done for Lucifer. Which is Dr Jekyll and which Mr Hyde in this duadic personality is not of serious consequence, as they have both got into a better way of thinking and acting. Now, since his demission from these high functions, Jean Kostka has found that the chief piece of Gnostic devilry is in denying that the lost angels are eternally damned. On this point he has attained what is rare in him, a touch of personal animosity. To supply the antipodes of heaven, let us say, with a lethal chamber, as a meaner order than that of theological charity does here, in the interests of homeless and snappy dogs, would, in his present state of grace, seem a very wicked proposition. Well, in 1890 Jean Kostka was invited, as I understand, by the chief of the Gnostic Church, that is, by himself, to a chapel in the palace of a lady who figures frequently in his pages under the name of Madame X.; the author takes great credit for concealing her real titles, but he has failed to conceal her identity, and there can be no harm in saying that the reference is to Lady Caithness. He was present upon serious business, in fact, nothing short of assisting at a séance. A medium had been secured, the proceedings began, rappings became audible, an intelligence desired to communicate, and, finally, there was a message, with a name given. It was Luciabel, “whom you know as Lucifer.” To this day Jean Kostka does not seem conscious of any element of idiocy in the variation of the old-fashioned name. In the revelation which followed, the intelligence, who seemed amiably disposed despite his sinister connections, informed the circle that, like Jesus, he was engendered eternally from God, that he was exiled from the pleroma, and that he was the Sophia-Achamoth of Valentine, the Helena-Ennoia of Simon Magus, the thought of God which had become anathema, and that he was now in search of love and consolation, both of which might take shape in a Gnostic church, and would be highly acceptable. There is, so to speak, a commercial element in the overtures which dries up the feeling of pity, or one might be exceedingly sorry for this lost chord of eternal thought, hoping charitably that we should still somehow hear it in heaven.
Since his conversion the unpretentious marvel of this séance has been a dire trouble to Jean Kostka, partly on account of its eschatology, but still more because the sitters were conscious at its close of a breath passing over their faces, while he himself felt the presence of lips against his own. Poor Jean Kostka! They were all abased on their knees, which happens occasionally, even at séances, to pious people in Paris, and he concludes that he was kissed by Helena-Ennoia, alias Lucifer, alias Luciabel, who is also described on the charge-sheet of orthodox theology by other and more objectionable titles. The shameful memory causes him to exclaim fervently:—“May he who purged the lips of Isaiah with a burning coal deign to purify mine by the sacred kiss of penitence and pardon: in osculo sancto.” There is a touch of sublimity in that, and the basia of Baal-Zeboub may well enough be more demoralising than those of Secundus. At the time, however, he founded the Gnostic Church.
We become acquainted with ghosts after various manners, according to our psychic condition. There is the spontaneous and accidental ghost who is seldom caught in the act; there is the able-bodied materialised ghost whom we catch in the act occasionally, and preserve our mental balance by clinging to his watch-chain and seals; they may be distinguished as the timeless ghost and the ghost who occasionally does time. Over and above these two generic specimens there is the ghost that throws, who is separable from the ghost that hurls, as our French friends put it. To hurl is to utter objectionable and unreasonable yells, preferably in the dead of night and in lonely places. This ghost is much sought after by specialists. It would be tedious to name all the varieties, but I can guarantee the unequipped that all known specimens have been carefully labelled, except possibly the odorous ghost, the ghost, that is to say, who manifests exclusively to the olfactory organ. This is an exceedingly withdrawn inappreciable kind, but it is familiar to Jean Kostka, who is a connoisseur in the smell supernatural, and has a trained psychic nose. He can distinguish between the spiritual perfume which characterises, let us say, St Stanislaus and the odorem suavitatis of Lucifer. He is also an authority on conditions, and gives a ravishing description of the voluptuous enervation diffused over all his limbs when he had a private memorandum from Isis by means of raps during the reception of a master in a blue lodge. On this occasion he tells us that he was inspired to pronounce one of his most wicked and dangerous Masonic discourses. Dear M. Kostka! Dynamite would lose its destroying power in his harmless hands.
At another function—but this was in a red lodge—he was overwhelmed by the presence of Lucifer, who elected and commissioned him to fight in his cause. It was a moment of unwonted intelligence—these are his own words—and he agreed, so incompetence chose its minister, and Frater Diabolus again showed himself a short-sighted rogue, because has not his emissary converted and passed over to the makers of pilgrimages? M. Kostka also at this time was so wicked as to be guilty of a pact, but he reserved two points, “the person of Christ and His mother.” The reservation of these sacraments is not specialised as to its kind, but, mon Dieu, how distraught was Lucifer to be so palpably tricked by a trente-troisième! Both these matters were, however, personal to the seer, and the lodges, whether red or blue, seem to have been quite unconscious that they had been entertaining divinity and demon unawares. M. Kostka has, in fact, been distinguished from the common herd of Masons by many favours of Lucifer, and he has naturally been ungrateful, for which I admire M. Kostka.
In succeeding chapters he details at considerable length a variety of hallucinations which he experienced on the subject of Helena-Ennoia, and he has also had visions of Jansen, of a false Francis Xavier, a false Christ, &c., but his most important experience was that which he terms Penetration, commonly experienced in autumn seasons and during the mists and mildness of October nights. On these occasions he was conscious of a curious extension of personality by which he seemed to enter into all Nature, and all Nature took voice and interpreted herself intelligibly to him. After music came verbal communications, and then the apparition of forms, chiefly of classical mythology. Most people would have termed this poetic rapture passing into lucidity, but our friend avers that it is the Enemy.
Such have been the experiences and adventures of Jean Kostka in the psychic world, and they are of precisely the same calibre as his critical method. I may say, in conclusion, that, if spared, he will do better in his next book, for he promises another, which is to exhibit in a convincing manner how Lucifer has been vanquished by Joan of Arc. In the meantime we may part from him with due recognition of his absolute good faith and extreme amiability; we may congratulate him on his conversion, and still more upon the very pleasant reading he provides; he does not appear to have unmasked Lucifer, but he has let us into the secret of the best that can be done in that way.
Lastly, the point to be marked in connection with the memoirs and revelations of Jean Kostka is this, that neither in Paris nor elsewhere, neither in Masonry nor in other secret associations, concerning which he has had every opportunity to judge, has he come personally into contact with a cultus of Satan or Lucifer; that he chooses to term certain mystical opinions and practices diabolical, because they are condemned by the Latin Church, is a matter which is perfectly indifferent and exhibits only the forlorn position of a case which resorts to the expedient. But it is highly significant that a man who has mixed among mystics of all grades for probably thirty years, who is affiliated to innumerable orders, and in his present mood would be glad to expose everything, has nothing to tell us of the Palladium, though he dwelt at its gates, and the circles he frequented were at a stone’s cast from the alleged Mother-Lodge Lotus of Paris.