The above article, which was reproduced in ZeroHedge, was an article by Mark E. Jeftovic: https://bombthrower.com/the-greatest-hoax-of-all-time/

Someone in the comments provided insights of why people choose to believe in compelling lies:

Btw., the idea that God has to be light and darkness at the same time goes back to Zoroaster, and more recently, and more pertinently, it has been revived by Ignatius of Loyola in his work The Spiritual Exercises, although only between the lines, as an implicit axiom he uses to justify his opinions, and Pope Francis keeps on making weird remarks of this sort as well, for instance that if you only worship the dievil from time to time, you're still his servant, which makes me think "Like every sunday at 10 A.M.?" Hmm, well, if you think that protestants are devil worshippers, which Loyola might have believed, it makes sense to resort to this kind of Ahura Mazda / Ahriman – dualism and this may be the reason why some think that Leo Taxil's inventions "must be true".

These are the other two articles by Jeftovic:

Part 1 - The real Albert Pike https://bombthrower.com/decoding-the-taxil-hoax-part-1/

Leo Taxil’s Jesuit education is an indication that he knows more than the average person about what is truly going on behind the scenes in the world. This may have served as a model for the hoax he ultimately created. In this report we’re going to explore what he said in detail, and ultimately coax out the identity of the god of the elites, and why they all appear to be engaged in the same depraved rituals.

[...] The real Albert Pike, who Taxil portrayed as the ringleader of the bogus group of Masons, has published a great deal of literature under his own name, the most famous being the much-maligned Morals and Dogma. The subject of Lucifer is raised only FOUR times in this 860 page book. Quite amazing for a supposed Luciferian. Pike is hardly venerating the deity, either.

Part 2 - The origin of child sacrifice https://bombthrower.com/decoding-the-taxil-hoax-part-2/

The pope's accusation that lead Taxil to come up with his hoax:

It should be remembered that Pope Leo XIII’s only complaint about Freemasons was that they were successfully advancing the idea of separation between Church and State, something enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. This Pope was, in a very real way, anti-American. He narcissistically saw anything that could diminish his control of nations around the world as ‘Satanic’ and wanted to rouse a reactionary movement against the principles of the Enlightenment that were spreading rapidly through Western society.

Throughout his analysis, he pointed the origin of child sacrifice to the Canaanites, who travelled vast lands, spreading their ways with them:

This is not even the full extent of Canaanite influence over the ancient world, a whole book would be needed for that, but there is one last thing worth mentioning. DNA studies performed on the nearly 3,000 year-old Paracas skulls of Peru reveal they came from Syria – making these Canaanites the earliest transatlantic voyagers known, nearly two millennia before the Vikings. Should it be a surprise, then, that we also find human sacrifice, cannibalism, and ritual sex in Mesoamerica?

If the government of Israel were being run by Canaanites, their incessant conflicts with Lebanon and Syria now make perfect sense. They’re trying to re-establish Canaan, not the Hebrew Kingdoms described in the Bible. This was not even being done in secret not too long ago. In 1939 a movement was founded by Palestinian Jews with the express purpose of re-creating Canaan.