Masks of the Illuminati

by Robert A. Wilson

  THIRD MALE VOICE

  Tis blood, thou stinkard, I’ll learn ye how to gust.

  BESTIAL VOICE

  The Death Mosquitoes! Killer Moths in the streets!

  [Unintelligible sounds]

  [Thunder]

  MACHINE VOICE

  One part sodium chloride and one part garters …

  THIRD MALE VOICE [chanting]

  From the depths of space, from the dark planets, from the stars that gleam with evil … [unintelligible] … the crypt of the Eyeless Eaters, the cursed valley of Pnath, He Who Shall Not Be Named …

  BESTIAL VOICE

  Tha want coont, Charlie. Tha want coont.

  DEMENTED MALE VOICE

  In the ghoul-haunted Woodland of Weir, stranger pause to shed a tear.

  DEMENTED FEMALE VOICE

  Henry Fielding wrote Tom Jones and cursed be he that moves my bones!

  THIRD MALE VOICE

  All aboard for Elfland. Check your mind at the door.

  BESTIAL VOICE

  Charlie’s going crazy, Charlie’s going crazy, Charlie’s going crazy …

  [Dog howls again in terror.]

  MACHINE VOICE

  That’s right: you’re wrong. That’s right: you’re wrong. That’s right: you’re wrong.

  BUZZING, BARELY HUMAN VOICE

  Wolde ye swinke me thikke wys?

  THIRD MALE VOICE

  To Pan! lo Pan Pan! I adore thee, Evoe! I adore thee, IAO!

  DEMENTED FEMALE VOICE

  Aye, my coont, Charlie. Tha wants my coont.

  FOURTH MALE VOICE

  … to the Black Goat of the Woods, to the altar of the seventy thousand steps leading down, to the bowels of the earth and the Abomination of Abominations …

  DEMENTED FEMALE VOICE

  Magna Mater! Magna Mater! Atys! Dia ad aghaidh’s ad Adoin! Agus bas dunach ort!

  The record stopped abruptly. Sir John sat in a daze, knowing that he had heard the voices of insane nightmare somehow unleashed from the darkest side of human fantasy and fear to take on substance real enough not just to torment poor Verey but to leave an impress on the record. The interpenetration of the worlds of dream and reality was complete.

  Arthur Machen’s words, from The Great God Pan, came back to him: “There must be some explanation, some way out of the terror. Why, man, if such a case were possible, our earth would be a nightmare.”

  ACTION SOUND

  INTERIOR, NIGHT. A MASQUERADE.

  LONG TRACKING SHOT.

  CAMERA hunts through the dancers—who include YEATS, TROTSKY, HITLER and BERTRAND RUSSELL—and comes finally to the Robed Figure at the altar. Merry Widow Waltz.

  The Robed One: “O thou lion-serpent-sun driving back the demons of night! I adore thee, Evoe! I adore thee, IAO!”

  George Cecil Jones put down Verey’s letter. His hand was trembling.

  “My God,” he said.

  They were in Jones’ study and Sir John could see, even in the candlelight, how pale the chemist had become.

  “Do you know anything of this M.M.M.?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Jones said. “It’s a bookstore. Mysteria Mystica Maxima—Occult and Mystical Books of All Ages; 93 Jermyn Street.”

  “Yes, Verey mentions that the address was on Jermyn Street—but a bookstore?”

  Jones smiled thinly. “You would expect some sort of Satanic temple with gargoyles grimacing at the passersby? An occult bookstore is as good a lure as any—if your prey is the individual seeking mystical secrets and your purpose is to lead him away from the path of light onto the path of darkness. Can you imagine Scotland Yard being persuaded to place a bookstore under surveillance, in this land of liberty and constitutional rights? Oh, a bookstore is an ideal trap for fools …” He shook his head, wearily. “The Mysteria Mystica Maxima is a creature that we in the Golden Dawn have watched with great interest since it opened two years ago. It has a quite adequate stock of mystical books of all traditions, but there are more volumes there by Mr. Aleister Crowley than by any other author. It also offers lectures, quite frequently, by Mr. Crowley.”

  “And was Lola Levine one of Crowley’s mistresses?”

  “She was,” Jones answered, “and, I imagine, still is.”

  “And is she the Lola in Clouds Without Water?”

  “I cannot doubt it any longer.”

  Sir John leaped from his chair and stood over Jones. “By God!” he shouted. “A man has been driven mad by a book! Murder has been done—murder that can probably never be proven in a court, but murder, nonetheless. Bat-winged creatures that titter and talk like the delusions of madness—malign dwarfs out of Celtic mythology—monstrous things—that abominable sacrifice on the altar—Jones, Jones, stop being the inscrutable teacher: it is too late for that. Tell me in plain words, for God’s sake, what we confront here.”

  “Sit down,” Jones said quietly, “and do stop panting. Of course, I will tell you all that we know. Pray believe we do not engage in mystery-mongering for its own sake. It is well that beginners do not know the whole truth, just as it is well that soldiers do not have too real a picture of battle before they are sent to the front.”

  Sir John sat down. “I apologize for my outburst,” he said stiffly.

  “It was to be expected under the circumstances,” Jones replied reassuringly. “Now, then, to be brief and precise …”

  But Jones was far from brief; he spoke, in fact, for nearly two hours.

  Freemasonry, Jones said, began with the Knights Templar, as Sir John had argued in his book, The Secret Chiefs. Though non-Masonic historians regard this story of the origin of Masonry as a myth, that is because they only know the rituals and teachings of the public Masonic orders—like the Free and Accepted Scottish Rite and the Royal Arch. Those privy to the secrets of the more arcane orders, such as the Brethren of the Rose Croix and the Golden Dawn, can easily see, Jones said, the direct continuity from the Knights Templar to the present.

  Moreover, Jones continued, there have been, ever since the destruction of the Templars by the Holy Inquisition in 1314, two distinct traditions of mystical Freemasonry, each denouncing the other as false and absurd.

  “Yes,” said Sir John, “I believe I know what you mean. There are those who accept the guilt of the Templars and those who deny it.”

  “Precisely,” said Jones. He rose to throw another log on the fire and then continued thoughtfully.

  The charges against the Templars, Jones reminded Sir John, included blasphemy, sexual perversion and black magick. All historians agree that these accusations were brought by Philip II, the King of France, in order to seize the enormous wealth of the Templars. But no two historians have ever come to total agreement about which, if any, of the charges happened to be true. The whole matter is made more complicated by the inconsistent behavior of Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Templars.

  “His behavior,” Sir John interjected, “is all too painfully clear to anybody who has investigated the instruments the Inquisition used in those days in order to obtain confessions.”

  “Indeed,” Jones said somberly. “The fact remains that de Molay left behind a most ambiguous heritage.” After arrest, he confessed under torture to all the charges made against the Order of Templars, including even such extremities as spitting on the crucifix and every sexual excess imaginable. Brought to trial, de Molay repudiated the entire confession and stated emphatically that he had made these admissions only to escape the sadistic tools of Inquisitorial interrogation. He was then put to the torture again, confessed again, and stood trial a second time without further denials. Then, on the pyre of his execution, before the flames were lit, he again passionately affirmed his innocence and that of the Templar order, denounced the Inquisition and the Royal House of France, and—according to some sources—died with the shout, “Vekam, Adonai!” [Revenge, O Lord!]

  “Any objective historian,” Jones went on, “however prejudiced against the claim that Freemasonry is rooted in the
secret teachings of the Templars, will admit that all the Templars were not killed in the great purge of 1314. Indeed, it is documented that the Spanish lodges of the Templars were not persecuted at all and continued quite unharmed while the French lodges were systematically exterminated. And even the more open Freemasonic orders, such as the Scottish Rite, still use de Molay’s last words—Vekam, Adonai!—in their Third Degree initiation, although most of them have no clear idea what the words mean or where they come from.”

  A continuous series of tragedies has struck the French throne over the centuries, Jones went on. It began with the assassination of Philip II, who had denounced the Templars and seized their wealth; Philip himself was stabbed to death one year and one day after de Molay was burned at the stake. It climaxed with the beheading of Louis XVI during the French Revolution. All this was the work of one lodge of Masonic Templars who were very literal about de Molay’s cry for vengeance. “It is their aim,” Jones said somberly, “having abolished the French monarchy, to overthrow, eventually, every king in Europe, and to destroy the Papacy, also.”

  Jones began rummaging in his bookshelves and produced a parchment of recent printing. “This,” he said, “is a document of the lodge to which I refer. It now calls itself the Ordo Templi Orientis—the Order of Oriental Templars—and is the owner of record of the Mysteria Mystica Maxima bookstore at 93 Jermyn Street. All members of the Ordo Templi Orientis must sign three copies of this document. It is the concise summary of the beliefs of the false Masonry which we in the Golden Dawn are pledged to oppose and vanquish.” He handed Sir John the parchment, which read:

  There is no God but Man.

  Man has the right to live by his own law.

  Man has the right to live in the way that he wills to

  do.

  Man has the right to dress as he wills to do.

  Man has the right to dwell where he wills to dwell.

  Man has the right to move as he will on the face of the

  earth.

  Man has the right to eat what he will.

  Man has the right to drink what he will.

  Man has the right to think what he will.

  Man has the right to speak as he will.

  Man has the right to write as he will.

  Man has the right to mould as he will.

  Man has the right to carve as he will.

  Man has the right to work as he will.

  Man has the right to rest as he will.

  Man has the right to love as he will, where, when

  and whom he will.

  Man has the right to kill those who would thwart

  these rights.

  “But this is anarchy!” Sir John exclaimed.

  “Exactly,” Jones said. “It is a declaration of war against everything we know as Christian civilization.”

  “And how insidious it is,” Sir John remarked. “Every person of enlightened sentiments will agree with parts of it. The incitement to promiscuity, assassination and revolution is phrased so as to seem part and parcel of an integrated philosophy of liberty. It would be particularly attractive to young and impressionable minds.”

  “Look again at the first line,” Jones said. “That is the kernel of the blasphemy: ‘There is no God but Man.’ Do you see how that could lead weak-minded atheists to a kind of humanistic mysticism, and naïve mystics to atheism, while drawing both into a worldwide plot against both civil government and organized religion? And can you see how this ultra-individualism could even attract some really good minds and noble hearts during the Dark Ages when all government was tyranny and the chief engine of religion was the ungodly terrorism of the Inquisition?”

  “And the perversions coded into Clouds Without Water are the same as those charged against the Templars,” Sir John mused. “The continuity is undeniable, over a period of six centuries … But do they really believe that such vile and nameless practices can raise them beyond humanity to Godhood?”

  “These erotic practices are central to many cults,” Jones said. “You will find them among certain Taoist alchemists in China, among the Tantrists in India, in the Egyptian and Greek mystery cults, among certain dark sects of Sufis in the Middle Ages—which is probably where this dark, diabolical side of Masonry evolved, alongside of true Masonry.”

  “But,” Sir John cried, “how could a man be trained in the Golden Dawn, as this Crowley was, and deliberately turn his back on it and join this perversion of the true Craft?”

  Jones sighed. “Why did Lucifer fall?” he asked. “Pride. The desire, not to serve God, but to be God.”

  There was a long silence and each man contemplated the horror lurking behind the initials M.M.M.

  Sir John spoke first. “What can we do for poor Reverend Verey and his wife?”

  “There is only one thing to do,” Jones said decisively. “We must cable him at once and urge, in the strongest possible language, that he and Mrs. Verey come to London straightaway. Here, working with the Chiefs of our Order, we can create a psychic shield to protect them. If they remain in that lonely home on Loch Ness, further horrors will inevitably descend upon them.” Jones shook his head wearily. “We must make the cable as strongly worded as possible,” he repeated. “Any delay on their part might be long enough for a second tragedy to occur.”

  DE FORMULA DEORUM MORIENTIUM

  Jones and Sir John spent nearly an hour composing the cable; it was nearly two in the morning when Sir John arrived home at Babcock Manor, totally exhausted.

  If he had bad dreams again, he was unable to remember them, because his butler, Wildeblood, abruptly awakened him at seven in the morning.

  “I’m most sorry, sir,” Wildeblood said, “but there is a gentleman here who is most insistent upon seeing you. He is in a terribly agitated state.”

  “At this ungodly hour?” Sir John grumbled, feeling for his slippers groggily. “Who the blazes is he?”

  “A clergyman, sir. He gave his name as Reverend Charles Verey.”

  Sir John bolted out of bed, grabbing desperately for his robe. He knew in his bones that fresh horror had struck Inverness before the cable could have arrived. “No tea,” he said. “Coffee—very black. And eggs and bacon for two, I suppose. In the plant room.”

  He washed and brushed his hair rapidly, without bothering to shave. Bat-winged monstrosities … the malign Wee People, regarded as quaint and harmless only by ignorant citified folklorists … the Thing in Loch Ness … What new abomination had finally driven old Verey from his beloved Highland hills?

  Descending the stairs almost at a gallop, Sir John received two shocks at once. Rev. Verey was a hunchback (but, of course, he would be too sensitive to mention that in his letters …) and he wore the most haggard and tragic face Sir John had ever seen.

  Composing his own features with great difficulty, Sir John extended a steady hand. “I am at your service, sir,” he said in a level voice. Keep calm, keep calm, he told himself sternly.

  The old man took Sir John’s hand weakly. “You see before you a broken man,” he said hoarsely. “I am almost ready to despair of God’s goodness,” he added, choking back a sob.

  “Come,” Sir John said kindly. “You must be exhausted from your trip, in addition to the evil forces you have faced. Let us breakfast together and discuss what can be done.” Verey was so pale, he noticed, that it was almost as if his face were painted for a death scene at the Old Vic.

  And so two men, both struggling for self-mastery, sat down in the plant room—where Sir John kept a cheerful collection of ferns, forsythia and morning glories, amid cages of canaries and mynah birds. It was by far the brightest breakfast room in the mansion, and Sir John had chosen it for that reason. Unfortunately, one of the mynahs had apparently picked up an indelicate phrase from one of the workmen who had installed new shelving the past weekend.

  “Hold your fucking end up, Bert!” the bird shrieked, as Sir John ushered the aged clergyman to the table.

  “Quiet!” Sir John burst out, fo
rgetting that it is better to ignore a mynah at such moments.

  “Hold your fucking end up, Bert!” the bird repeated, encouraged by the attention.

  “I’m sorry,” Sir John said, feeling inane. “He must have picked that up from a laborer.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Verey said absently. “Annie is dead.” He stared at the tiletop table, seemingly unable to speak further.

  [“Hold your fucking end up, Bert!”]

  “Annie?” Sir John asked gently. “Your wife?”

  “Aye,” Verey cried. “Annie, my wife. My companion for these forty-three years. My treasure, my heaven on earth.” And Sir John looked at the tabletop himself now, not wishing to watch the old man’s struggle against tears.

  “Coffee, sir,” said Wildeblood, suddenly appearing from amid the ferns. “The food will be along momentarily.”

  “Here, Reverend, take it hot and black,” Sir John said. “It will stimulate and revive you. I can’t tell you how sorry I am—how my heart feels for you at this moment—there are no words …”

  “Hold your fucking end up, Bert!”

  “Wildeblood!” Sir John exclaimed, “take that god—… that foul bird outdoors at once!”

  “Very good, sir.” Wildeblood withdrew carrying the cage. “Hello. Hello,” the bird cried as it was removed. “Wanna cracker. Hello. Wanna cracker.”

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” Sir John began again, realizing he was repeating himself. “What, uh, happened?” he asked. “Get it off your chest, man.”

  “It was the day after the inquest on Bertrán,” Verey said tonelessly. [He’s still in shock, Sir John thought.] “I hadn’t told Annie about the package that unhinged Bertrán’s mind—why give her more to worry about? Oh, what a fool I am, what a blind, ignorant fool … If she had known … if she had been warned …”

  “Get a grip on yourself,” Sir John said gently.

  “Yes, of course. I’m sorry….” [The victims of the worst tragedies, Sir John thought, always apologize to others, as if guilty about the debt of pity we owe them.] “It was another package,” Verey went on. “I didn’t notice when the post came. I was in my study, praying … asking God to intervene, to stop these diabolical beings who are afflicting my family. Like Job, I wanted to know that God did hear me and did have a reason for allowing the Adversary to heap these cruelties upon us. I don’t know … I was praying and weeping both, I think. Bertrán was one of the bravest men I have ever known, and I could not begin to imagine what could drive him to the cowardly, un-Christian act of suicide. What was that damnable book? At last, somehow, I composed myself. I said, ‘Not my will but Thine, be done, O Father,’ and resolved to hold my faith despite all.” Verey raised tormented eyes to stare at Sir John like a wounded animal. “That was when I heard that horrible sound for the second time in my life—the laughter of hysterical madness.”