Accepting the worst construction which is placed on its intention, it could have offered no point of contact with the alleged project of Albert Pike.

So far, therefore, the information contained in _Les Soeurs Maconnes_ conflicts with the history of the New and Reformed Palladium as given in my second chapter.
It has been said, however, that Leo Taxil charges another Masonic order of the androgyne type with satanic practices.

He divides the Egyptian Rite of Adoption into three grades; in that of apprentice, the discourse represents Adonai as the Genius of Pride, and the serpent-tempter of Genesis as the eternal principle of goodness; in that of Companion, the symbolism of the ritual enforces the necessity of rehabilitating the character of the mystic serpent; in that of Egyptian Mistress, there is a pretended evocation of planetary spirits by means of a clairvoyante, and Leo Taxil affirms on his own authority that the Supreme Being referred to in the discourse at initiation is Satan.

"According to the doctrine of the sect, the divinity is formed of two opposite principles, the genius of Being, who is Lucifer, and the genius of Destruction, who is Adonai." This is so obviously the doctrine of the Luciferian Palladians that it is difficult to understand why the institution of Charleston is not connected, as to purpose, if not as to origin, with the Egyptian Adoptive Rite of Misraimite Masonry.
At this point, however, it becomes my duty to state that there are some very curious facts in connection with the "Catechism of the Officiating Mistress," which is the source of information for the alleged Manichaean character of the third degree.

The more considerable and essential portion of that document, so far from being referable to the supposed founder of the Rite, namely, Count Cagliostro, is a series of mutilated passages taken from Eliphas Levi's _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_, and pieced clumsily together.