Knock was warning that the true Mass and priesthood was next on the masonic list for elimination. They depicted this state of affairs by way of their three snakes.

Here we see the raised serpent’s heads signifying the masonic sword’s victory over the last Melchisedech Kingship of Christianity. Not yet achieved is victory over the Melchisedech priesthood [and Catholic Mass] represented by the serpent’s papal tiara – the coronation crown, a symbol abandoned and sold by Pope Paul VI in the 1970s and which led to Pope John Paul II’s refusal even to be crowned Pope in 1978. While hell will not prevail totally, the masonic conspiracy saw the Melchisedech priesthood and Mass decimated by the beginning of the third millennium. Significant however, is the symbol of masonic-equilibrium, the ladder, dominating all.
Johannism
Appendix
Of profound importance in Pike’s revelations is the reference to the Johannites and the fact that by then, 1870, the ‘Order that has existed for centuries in despite of its anathemas, has its Sanctuaries and Asyla even in Rome.’ We need to know that the entire profane religion of Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ is built on the great truth of esoteric Catholicism is termed Johannism, they having chosen St John the Baptist and St John The Evangelist as the patron saints of Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ.
The Biblical Apocalypse tells of the snatching of divine fecundity by the dragon as the mystic issue is born at the foot of the cross. This then is why the Gnostic-Illuminati chose the two St Johns to profane among all the saints? The probable reason is to arrogate to themselves symbolically the divine fecundating power of St John in his baptism and that preserved alive in St John (and Mary) between Calvary and Pentecost, a fecundating or generation power impossible to Lucifer.

This is the masonic symbolism for phallic fecundation by word, the profane version of the fructification of the waters by Word. It shows the two St Johns, the Baptist on the left, the Evangelist on the right.