That is to say, Leo Taxil, while claiming to make public for the first time an instruction forming an essential part of a rite belonging to the last century, presents to us in that instruction the original philosophical reflections of a writer in the year 1856, and, moreover, he distorts palpably the fundamental principle of that writer, who, so far from establishing dualism and antagonism in God, exhibits most clearly the essential oneness in connection with a threefold manifestation of the divine principle.

I conceive that there is only one construction to be placed upon this fact, and although it is severe upon the documents it cannot be said that it is unjust.

When, therefore, Leo Taxil terminates his study of the Egyptian Rite by "divulging some essentially diabolical practices of the Misraim Lodges," namely, evocations of the elementary spirits, we shall not be surprised to find that the ritual of the proceedings is taken bodily from the same author who has been previously taxed for contributions.

The reader need only compare _Les Soeurs Maconnes_, pp.

323 to 330, with the "Conjuration of the Four" in the fourth chapter of the _Rituel de la Haute Magie_.