Devil-Worship in France or The Question of Lucifer

A short time ago that ultimate and universal source of reference, the person of average intelligence, had been asked concerning Modern Diabolism, or the Question of Lucifer, —What it is? Who are its disciples? Where is it practised? And why?—he would have replied, possibly with some asperity:—“The question of Lucifer! There is no question of Lucifer. Modern Diabolism! There is no modern Diabolism. ” And all the advanced people and all the strong minds would have extolled the average intelligence, whereupon the matter would have been closed hermetically, without disquieting and unwelcome investigations like the present.


Arthur Edward Waite was an occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck.Born in the United States, and raised in England, A.E. Waite joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1891 and also entered the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia in 1902. The Golden Dawn was torn by further internal feuding until Waite's departure; a year later he formed the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, not to be confused with the Rosicrucians. By that time there existed some half-dozen offshoots from the original Golden Dawn, and as a whole it never recovered.