booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

applied to Falk in his quest for the philosopher's stone, but was denied admittance." Nevertheless Hayyum
Azulai mentions (Ma'gal Tob, p. 13b): That when in Paris in 1778 he was told by the Marchesa de Crona
that the Ba'al Shem of London had taught her the Cabala. Falk seems also to have been on intimate terms
with that strange adventurer Baron Theodor de Neuhoff.... Falk's principal friends were the London bankers
Aaron Goldsmid and his son.[29] Pawnbroking and successful speculation enabled him to acquire a considerable
fortune. He left large sums of money to charity, and the overseers of the United Synagogue in London
still distribute annually certain payments left by him for the poor.
Nothing of all this would lead one to suppose that Falk could be regarded in the light of a black magician;
it is therefore surprising to find Dr. Adler observing that a horrible account of a Jewish Cabalist in
The Gentleman's Magazine for September 1762 " obviously refers to Dr. Falk, though his name is not mentioned."[30]
This man is described as " a christened Jew and the biggest rogue and villain in all the world,"
who " had been imprisoned everywhere and banished out of all countries in Germany, and also sometimes
publicly whipped, so that his back lost all the old skin, and became new again, and yet left never off from
his villainies, but grew always worse." The writer goes on to relate that the Cabalist offered to teach him
certain mysteries, but explained that before entering on any "experiments of the said godly mysteries, we
must first avoid all churches and places of worshipping as unclean "; he then bound his initiate by a very
strong oath and proceeded to tell him that he must steal a Hebrew Bible from a Protestant and also procure "
one pound of blood out of the veins of an honest Protestant." The initiate thereupon robbed a Protestant of
all his effects, but had himself bled of about three-quarters of a pound of blood, which he gave to the magician.
He thus describes the ceremony that took place: Then the next night about 11 o'clock, we both went
into the garden of my own, and the cabalist put a cross, tainted with my blood, in each corner of the garden,
and in the middle of the garden a threefold circle... in the first circle were written all the names of God in
Hebrew; in the second all the names of the angels; and in the third the first chapter of the holy Gospel of
St. John, and it was all written with my blood.
The cruelties then performed by the Cabalist on a he-goat are too loathsome to transcribe. The whole
story, indeed, appears a farrago of nonsense and would not be worth quoting but for the fact that it appears
to be taken seriously by Dr. Adler as a description of the great Ba'al Shem.
The death of Falk took place on April 17, 1782, and the epitaph on his grave in the cemetery at Globe
Road, Mile End, "bears witness to his excellencies and orthodoxy": " Here is interred... the aged and honourable
man, a great personage who came from the East, an accomplished sage, an adept in Cabbalah.... His
name was known to the ends of the earth and distant isles," etc.
This then is surely the portrait of a most remarkable personage, a man known for his powers in England,
France, and Germany, visited by a royal prince in search of the philosopher's stone, and acclaimed by one of
his own race as standing alone in his generation by reason of his knowledge, yet whilst Saint-Germain and
Cagliostro figure in every account of eighteenth-century magicians, it is only in exclusively Judaic or masonic
works, not intended for the general public, that we shall find any reference to Falk. Have we not here
striking evidence of the truth of M. Andre Baron's dictum: " Remember that the constant rule of the secret
societies is that the real authors never show themselves "?
It will now be asked: what proof is there that Falk is connected with any masonic or secret societies?
True, in the accounts given by the Jewish Encyclopædia, the word Freemasonry is not once mentioned. But
in the curious portrait of the great Ba'al Shem appended, we see him holding in his hand the pair of compasses,
and before him, on the table at which he is seated, the double triangle or Seal of Solomon known
amongst Jews as " the Shield of David," which forms an important emblem in Masonry.
Moreover, it is significant to find in the Royal Masonic Encyclopædia by the Rosicrucian Kenneth
Mackenzie that a long and detailed article is devoted to Falk, though again without any reference to his connexion
with Freemasonry. May we not conclude that in certain inner masonic circles the importance of Falk
is recognized but must not be revealed to the uninitiated? Mr. Gordon Hills, in the above-quoted paper contributed
to the Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, indulges in some innocent speculation as to the part Falk may
have played in the masonic movement. " If," he observes, " Jewish Brethren did introduce Cabalistical
learning into the so-called High Degrees, here we have one, who, if a Mason, would have been eminently
qualified to do so."
Falk indeed was far more than a Mason, he was a high initiate-the supreme oracle to which the secret societies
applied for guidance. All this was disclosed a few years ago in the correspondence between
Savalette de Langes and the Marquis de Chefdebien referred to in the previous chapter. Thus in the dossiers
of the leading occultists supplied by Savalette we find the following note on the Ba'al Shem of London: This
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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