Dr Bataille" that "[t]he Order of Palladium founded in Paris 20 May 1737 or Sovereign Council of Wisdom" was a "Masonic diabolic order". Dr. Bataille asserted that women would supposedly be initiated as "Companions of Penelope". According to Dr. Bataille, the society had two orders, "Adelph" and "Companion of Ulysses"; however, the society was broken up by French law enforcement a few years after its founding. A supposed Diana Vaughan published Confessions of an Ex-Palladist in 1895. Confession On April 19, 1897, Léo Taxil called a press conference at which, he claimed, he would introduce Diana Vaughan to the press. At the conference instead he announced that his revelations about the Freemasons were fictitious. He thanked the Catholic clergy for their assistance in giving publicity to his wild claims. Taxil's confession was printed, in its entirety, in the Parisian newspaper Le Frondeur, on April 25, 1897, titled: Twelve Years Under the Banner of the Church, The Prank Of Palladism. Miss Diana Vaughan–The Devil At The Freemasons. A Conference held by M. Léo Taxil, at the Hall of the Geographic Society in Paris. The hoax material is still cited to this day. The Chick Publications tract, The Curse of Baphomet, and Randy Noblitt's book on satanic ritual abuse, Cult and Ritual Abuse, both cite Taxil's fictitious claims. A later interview with Taxil In the magazine National Magazine, an Illustrated American Monthly, Volume XXIV: April – September, 1906, pages 228 and 229, Taxil is quoted as giving his true reasons behind the hoax. Ten months later, on March 31, 1907, Taxil died. The Luciferian quote A series of paragraphs about Lucifer are frequently associated with the Taxil hoax. They read: While this quotation was published by Abel Clarin de la Rive in his Woman and Child in Universal Freemasonry, it does not appear in Taxil's writings proper, though it is sourced in a footnote to Diana Vaughan, Taxil's creation. Popular culture The Palladists are the name of the Greenwich Village Satanist society in Val Lewton's film The Seventh Victim. The Palladists play a major role in the latter part of Umberto Eco's novel The Prague Cemetery (2011). See also List of hoaxes Affair of the Cards References Further reading External links "A hoax", l'Illustration, May 1. 1897- No. 2827: Paris, France. Abel Claren de la Rive (1855-1914) Freemason site on the Palladium Devil-Worship in France, by A.E. Waite complete e-text of Waite's