Jack Chick Updates, Renames, Re-Releases "The Curse of Baphomet"

WARNING: I'm addicted to parentheticals. Bear with me.

I noticed this about a month ago. I don't know when it actually happened.

One of fundamentalist Christian cartoonist Jack Chick's more popular (at least around here) tracts, The Curse of Baphomet, has been substantially revised, presumably (to me) in the wake of frequent discussion about his sources. (A version close to the original is here.) Most notable is the removal of Taxil Hoax material, replacing it with quotations from Eliphas Levi and comparison to excerpts from Morals and Dogma.

A few observations:
1. Jack Chick has been backing Curse off the Taxil precipice for years (Morris and deHoyos demonstrate his earlier willingness to simply switch out sources for the Taxil quote when it turned out the first never existed, and further backtracking will be examined later), but it's truly odd that he's completely given it up in his most vicious anti-Masonic tract. Given that it's come up about once a month here, it's hardly lost favor with his audience. It's also not uniform; Taxil's words live on in the lesser-known The Unwelcome Guest.

2. Despite his unwillingness to use primary Taxil material, Jack Chick still sources the testimony of (in)famous ex-everything Bill Schnoebelen (who, in The Unwelcome Guest, is used as yet another roadblock from finding out the truth about the quote). I have no access to any editional changes of Beyond the Light, and I have no idea if Schnoebelen has retracted part of his testimony, but a significant part of Beyond the Light was devoted to Schnoebelen's "experiences" in Pike's Palladian Rite, which was entirely Taxil's invention. Even if Schnoebelen no longer claims ex-membership in the Palladian Rite, one would think accepting the reality of Taxil's hoax would make anyone who based so substantial a claim on it persona non grata to an intellectually honest researcher. (Not that Jack Chick doesn't have excellent defenses against any charges of intellectual honesty.)

3. In a further (and somewhat more thorough) fact-check, Chick's removed the ludicrous claim about Shriner's fezzes being dedicated to the slaughter of Christians that never lived in Fez, Morocco.

I must admit that I'm not well-versed enough in Levi (or, if I'm honest, in Pike) to offer up any thoughts on the comparisons of Levi to M&D. Hopefully the rest of the membership can fill in the void I left.

reply to post by OnTheLevel213


Albert Pike frequently quoted Eliphas Levi such that it is almost plagiarism except academia had different standards in the 19th century. Still the Chick tract quotes both authors out of context, the quotes begin with the Gnostics believed... Itis not a statement of the faith of Freemasons rather an exposition of the beliefs of Gnostics.

Still I approve of Chick tracts using our actual literature in their strips instead of fabrications and lies because one can easily check for oneself the truth of the statements.

The Mysteries of Magic - Levi

Morals and Dogma - Pike

reply to post by OnTheLevel213


I'm sorry to report that i have not read anything in regards to your OP. I will start now, and learn a bit.

I just wanted to chime in and say don't feel bad, man. Levi and Albert are difficult to read on the best days and painstaking on the slower days. I can honestly say i learn something new every time i crack into M&D... The downside is that i have a mental hangover for about a week after digesting that tiny print.

Jack Chick, IMO, is a liar, bigot, and a fool.

reply to post by OnTheLevel213

the part in the comic with the crescent and moon god allah is wrong. the christian and jewish god jehova is the same as allah. it was abraham, that built the kaba in mekka.

Where would we be without Jack Chick and his Chick Tracts and the fantastic leaps to conclusion of Olympic proportion? Almost everything I liked as a teenager had a Chick Tract devoted to it, my favorite was "Dark Dungeons" about the dangers of role playing games (AKA "intense occult training"). Great satires have adopted this tactic, such as the Church of the Subgenious and others.

I made a thread about it some time ago, but no one ever contributed so it faded into obscurity.

Chick Tract Parodies!

double post, I swear I only clicked once!

Originally posted by no1smootha


Albert Pike frequently quoted Eliphas Levi such that it is almost plagiarism except academia had different standards in the 19th century.

Just for the record:

Pike's "Morals and Dogma", which quotes and paraphrases Levi at length, is not academia. Instead, it is a collection of the lectures of the degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, SJ, USA.

In the Preface, Pike acknowledges that he didn't write all of it, that he was "equally compiler and author", and that he didn't reference quotes and paraphrasing because they were degree lectures, not something he was taking credit for.

reply to post by Masonic Light


That is a good point ML, he didn't put together M&D for academic purposes. I guess in reality we hold non-academic works to a higher standard today, or maybe I do. When I write philosophical works for my Lodge, I always cite quoted source material.

The DeHoyos annotated M&D would be a treasured book in my library if I could afford it. I would be interested to see what other authors he utilized in the work.