Page:Devil-Worship in France 1896.djvu/285

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at every point, we need have no hesitation in rejecting the information which it provides in those cases where it cannot be brought to book. The connection of Faustus Socinus with the Rosicrucian Fraternity, as founder, is one instance; this is merely an extension of the imposture of Abbé Lefranc in his "Veil Raised for the Curious," and it rests, like its original, on no evidence which can be traced. Another is the Rosicrucian Imperatorship of Andreæ, and yet another the initiation of Robert Fludd. Again, the connection of Philalethes with John Frederick Helvetius is based on speculation only, and that of Ashmole with the institution of symbolical Masonry has never been more than hypothesis, and not very deserving at that. I regret to add that, on the authority of her bogus documents, Miss Vaughan has given currency to a rumour that the founder of the Ashmolean Museum poisoned his first wife. She deserves the most severe reprobation for having failed to test her materials before she made public this foul slander. Furthermore, in that portion of her materials which is concerned with her family

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