Trés Haute Lunaire, also called the Grand Lunaire, was certainly the most mysterious of Parisian secret societies. Its alleged members included Alexandre Rouhier, largely responsible for introducing peyote to European occult circles; Jean Marquès-Rivière, the wunderkind of visionary Orientalism; Vivian du Mas, an initiate of the Polaires and the man behind the infamous Synarchic Pact — and the enigmatic alchemist called “Fulcanelli.” While Gaston de Mengel, who acts as our Virgil-like guide into the interwar Parisian occult underground in Chasing the Green Dragon, would have probably shunned THL as being allied with the nefarious Green (or Black) forces, he certainly rubbed shoulders with some of its alleged members.
In May 1925, in an article in Le Petit Journal, the journalist Marcel Nadaud tells about a sect of devil-worshippers who were said to have numerous branches in provinces and abroad, particularly in Brussels. They allegedly gathered “in the 4th arrondissement in certain secret and variable places on dates fixed according to the phases of the Moon; hence the name ‘Grand Lunaire’” According to Nadaud, in 1924, the group had also held two meetings “on the full moons of May and June around the dolmen in the forest of Meudon, where they were surprised by guards.”´
The thing that attracted the Satanists in the 4th arrondissement was a feature on the portico of the Church of Saint-Merri: they gathered sub Baphomet.
Later, Pierre Geyraud (his pen name was an anagram of his real name, Raoul Guyader) reported about a “Black Sabbath” that reminds one of a scene in Eyes Wide Shut. Taking a walk on Midsummer’s eve in the Meudon Woods, he stumbled upon a nocturnal rite around the dolmens: he spied roughly sixty participants; city slickers, neatly dressed, their chauffeurs waiting in fancy cars. Holding hands, the group danced farandole around the bonfire, “performing an age-old rite to help the Sun squeeze through a crucial phase in its journey.” Geyraud recognised an alchemist he had met during his investigation into contemporary magic and decided to study the matter further, but “a man from Brussels” soon warned him that the sect was ”very powerful and very dangerous in every way: through their magical powers, through their high political connections, and through their highly-paid stooges.” They were called the T.H.L., and they were a Luciferian society; not one of “those erotic secret societies” but “something more serious.”
“What do the followers of T. H. L. practise? High magic. In the occultum on rue Chapon, they sometimes perform ceremonial magic in honour of Lucifer. They are dressed in tight-fitting black trunks, low cut (now is the time to reveal that T. H. L. stands for Très-Haut Lunaire, as the Moon is said to belong to Lucifer). They prostrate themselves before the Baphomet (…) and capture, for marvellous purposes, the magical fluid that emerges from their couplings.” (Les Sociétés secrètes de Paris [1938], 117)
The precious bodily fluids were actually used, it was said, to create beautiful, voluptuous homunculi known as “Ephialtes” by “heating female blood over a wood fire in a dark room, adding certain secret perfumes, and magically mixing it with male semen.”
According to Marquès-Rivière, the members of T.H.L wore a Baphomet ring, designed by The Alchemist, as a token of admission to their gatherings.
What exactly was going on? Get your copy of Chasing the Green Dragon by Ike Vil and find out.
PS: a limited edition of the book will be published by Abraxas Publishing a bit later this year! (www.abraxaspublishing.com)
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