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This is unknown GOLD

In reality, the fictitious "Doctor Bataille" and the publication of Le Diable au XIXe Siècle were key pieces in what one awed journalist described as "the most colossal hoax of modern times".

The grand conductor behind this hoax? Leo Taxil: journalist, prankster, expelled Freemason and founding member of the French Anti-Clerical League.

For 12 years, Taxil weaved an intricate web of deception: publishing self-referencing texts under various identities, hiring his typist to play the part of a Luciferian Templar Mistress, faking his own conversion to Catholicism, and even meeting the Pope.

The Vatican played right into Taxil's hands: corroborating his "facts" and announcing that Freemasons were most assuredly guilty of satanic worship and conspiring to bring down the Church.

Which made it a tad awkward when Taxil then convened a press conference and gleefully revealed the entire affair to be a prank.

Originally posted in the Bizarre Magick Facebook group.