Editing Lucifer (section)

===Freemasonry===
[[Léo Taxil]] (1854–1907) claimed that [[Freemasonry]] is associated with worshipping Lucifer. In what is known as the [[Taxil hoax]], he alleged that leading Freemason [[Albert Pike]] had addressed "The 23 Supreme Confederated Councils of the World" (an invention of Taxil), instructing them that Lucifer was God, and was in opposition to the evil god [[Adonai]]. Taxil promoted a book by Diana Vaughan (actually written by himself, as he later confessed publicly)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/taxil_confessed.html |title=Leo Taxil's confession |publisher=Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon |date=2 April 2001 |access-date=23 December 2012 |archive-date=2 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150502135719/http://www.freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/taxil_confessed.html |url-status=live }}</ref> that purported to reveal a highly secret ruling body called the [[Palladists|Palladium]], which controlled the organization and had a satanic agenda. As described by ''Freemasonry Disclosed'' in 1897:
{{blockquote|With frightening cynicism, the miserable person we shall not name here [Taxil] declared before an assembly especially convened for him that for twelve years he had prepared and carried out to the end the most sacrilegious of hoaxes. We have always been careful to publish special articles concerning Palladism and Diana Vaughan. We are now giving in this issue a complete list of these articles, which can now be considered as not having existed.<ref>''Freemasonry Disclosed'' April 1897</ref>}}

Supporters of Freemasonry assert that, when Albert Pike and other Masonic scholars spoke about the "Luciferian path," or the "energies of Lucifer," they were referring to the Morning Star, the light bearer, the search for light; the very antithesis of dark. Pike says in Morals and Dogma, "Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it {{em|he}} who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish Souls? Doubt it not!"<ref>(Albert Pike, ''Morals and Dogma'', p. 321).</ref> Much has been made of this quote.<ref>([http://www.masonicinfo.com/lucifer.htm Masonic information: Lucifer] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220127132513/http://www.masonicinfo.com/lucifer.htm |date=2022-01-27 }}).</ref>

Taxil's work and Pike's address continue to be quoted by anti-masonic groups.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.masonicinfo.com/taxil.htm |title=Leo Taxil: The tale of the Pope and the Pornographer |access-date=14 September 2006 |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417034641/http://www.masonicinfo.com/taxil.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In ''Devil-Worship in France'', [[Arthur Edward Waite]] compared Taxil's work to today's [[tabloid journalism]], replete with logical and factual inconsistencies.