Today we’re taking a look at one of the wildest, most enduring hoaxes of all time—The Taxil Hoax. Ever wondered why Freemasons are a magnet for conspiracy theories? In the 1890s, a French prankster named Leo Taxil tricked the Vatican into believing that Luciferian Freemasons were plotting world domination. We'll trace how Taxil's grand illusion unfolded, from his time as a schoolboy to his time pretending to be Diana Vaughan—a fabricated Grand Mistress descended from a 17th-century Rosicrucian. Through pseudonyms and theatrics, Taxil made a hoax so compelling that people today still believe in Palladism, the imaginary secret Luciferian society inside Freemasonry.

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