Paris in the 1880s and 1890s filled with occult orders, Papus's Martinists, de Guaita's Kabbalistic Rose-Croix, Peladan's rival aesthetic order, the fringe Egyptian rites, and this dossier lays out who they were and the schism that divided them. The one thread that reached documented history is Philippe of Lyon, the mesmeric healer who held the trust of Tsar Nicholas II before Rasputin, and at whose court the Protocols are first caught being used. The forgery's deployment is documented; its authorship is left open.