Illuminati
Secret Societies
Illuminati Exposed
The Illuminati Exposed
Mysterious Beginnings
(1) Islamic Parallels
"Sufi historian Indries Shah traces the name of the Illuminati
back to a verse in the Koran which mentions a shining star..." See Patar and the Judean Illuminator for ancient Egyptian and
Judean connections to the "Illuminati".
"The term 'Illuminati' was used by one early writer, Menendez
Pelayo, as early as 1492 and is attributable to a group known as the
'Alumbrados' of Spain. The Alumbrados were said to receive secret knowledge from
an unknown higher source, resulting in superior human intelligence. This group
was condemned by an edict of the Grand Inquisition in 1623..."
"Some writers claim that a group know as the 'Illuminated Ones'
was founded by Joachim of Floris in the eleventh century and taught a primitive,
supposedly Christian doctrine of 'poverty and equality'." "The sixteenth century saw the rise of a powerful society based
upon a secret cult, in the mountains of Afghanistan - the Roshaniya, Illuminated
ones." "The earliest figure named in the history of the cult is one Bayezid
Ansari, of Afghanistan, whose family claimed descent from the Ansar - the
'Helpers', who assisted Mohammed after his flight from Mecca nearly fourteen
hundred years ago. As a reward for this service, he stated, his ancestors had
been granted initiation into the mysteries of the Ishmaelite religion: the
secret, inner training which dated from Abraham's rebuilding of the Temple at
Mecca, the mystical Hiram." "Not far from Peshawar, which is now in the
north-west of Pakistan, Bayezid set up a small school, where he carefully
coached those who had been initiated by him in the knowledge of the supernatural
that he claimed. A period of probation was expected from each candidate, during
which he would to into periods of concealment or meditation, known as khilwat -
silence. During this time he was to receive the illumination which was emanated
from the supreme being, who desired a class of perfect men- and women- to carry
out the organization and direction of the world."
Merchants and soldiers "contributed lavishly to the chief's upkeep
and his most expensive military, political and espionage system." At this stage
of success, Bayezid now preached that there was "no after-life of the kind
currently believed in: no reward or punishment, only a spirit state which was
completely different from earthly life. The spirits, if they belonged to the
Order, could continue to enjoy themselves and be earthly powers, acting through
living members....Eat, drink and be merry. Gain power, look after yourself. You
have no allegiance except to the Order, he told them: and all humanity which
cannot identify itself by our secret sign is our lawful prey."
"Forty years after the last religio-military leader of the Afghan
Illuminate Ones died, a society of the same name (the Illuminati) came into
being in Germany, formed, it is said, by Adam Weishaupt, the young professor of
Canon Law at Ingolstadt University. Coincidences of date and beliefs connect
these Bavarian Illuminati with the Afghan ones, and also with other cults which
called themselves 'Illuminated'." (2) Adam Weishaupt
"Rather than obey the dictates of the real, and adjust himself to
his reduced limits, late eighteenth-century man took refuge among phantoms;
satisfying his nostalgia with the marvels offered by impostors and necromancers,
he fled matter and denied its existence....A whole culture was
collapsing." Illuminisme-Theosophie 1770-1820
Adam Weishaupt "adopted the teachings of radical French
philosophers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and the anti-Christian
doctrines of the Manicheans. He was indoctrinated in Egyptian occultism in 1771
by a merchant of unknown origin named Kolmer, who was said to have traveled
Europe in search of converts." "Brilliant and well trained by the Jesuits in the conspiratorial
methods of access to power, young Weishaupt decided to organize a body of
conspirators, determined to free the world from the Jesuitical rule of Rome and
help humanity back to the pristine Christian faith of the hermetic martyrs. He
is reputed to have been initiated by a German merchant named Kolmer, he had
spent many years in Egypt, into a secret doctrine based on Manichaeism. Mayday
of 1776, Weishaupt founded his own sect of the Very Perfectibles - better known
as the Illuminati - with five original members, self-described as reformist
libertarians, partisans of absolute equality." "Adam Weishaupt, Professor of Canon Law at the University of
Ingolstadt, conceived the idea of founding an order which, by mutual
helpfulness, counsel, and philosophic discussions, would increase morality and
virtue, lay the foundation for the reformation of the world, and oppose the
progress of evil, all of which objectives were expressed in the name, 'Order of
Perfectibilists' or 'Perfectionists', which was soon changed to 'Illuminati',
which is best translated as 'intellectually inspired'. Modesty and humility
seems to have been no trait of Weishaupt, for he was one of the first to attempt
to fly with little knowledge of human aerodynamics. His ambition outweighed his
judgement; his ideals were too refined for a rude world. Like many other
promoters, Weishaupt sought the aid of Freemasonry to give his machine both
propulsion and ballast. But it dragged Freemasonry down without helping
Illuminism very much. He was too shrewd and subtle for his own good, though such
qualities gave him headway for a time. Although he formerly belonged to the
Jesuits, he secured admission to a lodge of Freemasons in 1777. Ironically, that
was named 'Lodge of Caution'."
"We are not informed as to just how Weishaupt became associated
with Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwid Baron Von Knigge, for the latter lived in
North Germany, was of the nobility, and, after his initiation in 1773, showed
little interest in Freemasonry. But noblemen were found in abundance in the most
fraudulent orders in Germany claiming some Masonic connections. Weishaupt, in
1780, dispatched the Marquis de Costanzo to propagate Illuminism in the north
and Knigge probably then first showed interest in the society. He became more
and more enthusiastic as the plan was revealed to him, and, in 1781, accepted
the invitation to visit Bavaria and receive full access to all of Weishaupt's
materials. Knigge not only completed the scale of degrees but became a proponent
of them, bringing to his aid the assistance of Johann J. C. Bode, a prominent
German Mason. The order was at first very popular and attracted, it is said,
some of the best men in Germany and some of the worst. It had 2000 names on its
rolls and spread to France, Belgium, Holland, Denamrk, Sweden, Poland, Hungary,
and Italy." "Unable in Catholic Bavaria to achieve this utopian goal by direct
means, Weishaupt determined to work from within an existing organization: the
Masonic order....By 1779, there were 54 members of the Illuminati, mostly young
noblemen and clergymen, established in four Bavarian cities. Thereafter, with
the help of a Masonic bookseller, Johann Bode, the order branched out through
Southern Germany and Austria, and down into France and Northern Italy,
intellectuals, such as Goethe, Schiller, Mozart, and Herder were
attracted." "Knigge, especially, was a highly religious and intellectual man
and would have had nothing to do with that or any other order which was
anti-Christian, yet, the vicious attacks and accusations by Baruel and Robison
had great influence, and it was even charged that the Illuminati were themselves
agents of the Jesuits, though the latter were opposing it in their usual secret
manner. The Illuminati were extremely secretive, even identifying themselves and
their chapters by assumed classical names; for examples, Weishaupt was
Spartacus, Knigge was Philo, Ingolstadt, the headquarters, was Eleusis, Austria
was Egypt, etc. Dates were given in a sort of cryptography." Thomas Jefferson "strenuously defended the Illuminati, and
described Weishaupt as 'an enthusiastic philanthropist'." "As Weishaupt lived under the tyranny of a despot and priests, he
knew that caution was necessary even in spreading information, and the
principles of pure morality. This has given an air of mystery to his views, was
the foundation of his banishment....If Weishaupt had written here, where no
secrecy is necessary in our endeavors to render men wise and virtuous, he would
not have thought of any secret machinery for that purpose." "The Illuminati were finally beset by both internal and external
disorders, for Weishaupt found fault with some of Knigge's ritualistic work and
peremptorily ordered it changed, whereupon, Knigge became disgusted and resigned
in 1784. The Jesuits had fought it from the first and eventually all priests
became its active enemies and raised so much opposition that the Elector of
Bavaria supressed the Order by edict, June 22, 1784, many Illuminati being
imprisoned and some, including Weishaupt, being forced to flee the country.
Though the first edict had been obeyed, it was repeated in March and August,
1785. Not only Illuminism, but Freemasonry was exterminated in Bavaria and
neither ever recovered its former position. The Illuminati seem to have
completely disappeared everywhere by the end of the 18th
century." "The suppression of the Illuminati of Bavaria in 1785 created a
tremendous furor whose echoes reached as far as New England, drawing George
Washington out in support of the suspect American Freemasons. In fact the
Illuminati proved to be the unwilling occasion for the birth of modern
conspiracy theory. Wildly exaggerated accounts of their supposed wickedness and
of the imminent peril which they represented for society were published in a
great epidemic of pamphlets. Their secrecy, their insistence on recruitment of
important civil servants, their concealment of the true aims of the society from
all but a few highly placed initiates, combined to make them into the bogeymen
not only of the German conservatives but of a wider European public. Four years
later, when the French Revolution broke out, the mythical beliefs about the
Illuminati of Bavaria were incorporated in a vaster and wilder conspiracy
theory, which found room also for the Templars." "What is today called the conspiracy theory was born in the flood
tide of books, pamphlets, and articles denouncing the Illuminati and linking
them to an ever-lengthening list of other supposed plotters. The scope of the
accusations is reflected in the title of one anti-Illuminati book, published in
1797: Proofs of a Conspiracy against All the Religions and Governments of
Europe, Carried On in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and
reading Societies, Collected from Good Authorities....The 170-year-old Proofs of
a Conspiracy was reissued in 1967 by the John Birch Society, which apparently
considered the Illuminati a clear and present danger." (3) Rites of the Illuminati
"The aristocratic mumbo-jumbo of the Templar lodges pandered to
the confused conservatism of the German nobles and ad a great deal in common
with the mumbo-jumbo of the Rosicrucians, to whose ideas the Illuminati were
absolutely opposed. The Bavarian Illuminati were an austere emanation of the
spirit of the German Professorate, inspired by a consciously bourgeois program,
irreligious and radical." "The ceremonies were divided into three principal classes and
those into degrees as follows:
I- The Nursery II- Symbolic Freemasonry III- Mysteries "Status as a Mason was not required for initiation into the Order
of Illuminati since the fourth, fifth and sixth degrees of Weishaupt and Baron
Von Knogge's system practically duplicated the three degrees of symbolic
Freemasonry. Although Knigge claimed to have a system of ten degrees, the last
two appear never to have been fully worked up." "Openly political and antimonarchial, Weishaupt's 'Illuminati'
formed another channel of 'higher degrees' for Freemasons to graduate into after
completing the Blue Degrees. Weishaupt's 'Illuminati' had its own 'hidden
master' known as the 'Ancient Scot Superior'. "In the lower ranks - the 'nursery' - the member was very much in
the dark as to the way in which the Order was run, and how it should accomplish
its design of freeing the world. As he progressed, however, he found that a part
of his service to the Society was to gain financial and social power, and to
place them at the disposal of the group. He was expected to be a diligent Mason,
and to try to gain control over Masonic funds. It was not until the tenth rite
of promotion had been completed that the member was given - with the grade of
Priest - certain definite knowledge. This included the fact that the Illuminati
were proposing to destroy princes and prelates throughout the world, and were to
remove forever the feeling of local nationality from the minds of men. The ways
in which this was to be done involved infiltrating high positions in education,
administration and the Press.
"The very highest degrees showed that the rationalism and
materialism of the thinkers who developed it were determined to stamp out belief
in religion. God and any faith in a deity, the initiate was told, were human
inventions, and had no real meaning. Subsequently this was developed further,
and the member who arrived at the highest position (that of Rex, King) learned
that he was now equal to a king, and that all men were capable of equal
advancement; hence the need for kings over ordinary mortals was an
illusion." Revenge of the Templars?
(1) Threads of Conspiracy
"After their recent exposures in Bavaria, The Illuminati had been
driven even further underground, taking on a variety of names, such as The
French Revolutionary Club. As radicals flocked into these new varieties of
Illuminism, a larger meeting hall was needed. The Hall of the Jacobins Convent
was leased, and it was from this hall that they eventually derived their new
name, the Jacobin Club. "The Jacobin Club met in secret and eventually boasted
of having some of the best-educated and most influential men in France among its
1,300 members. The Jacobins vowed to destroy the monarchy, as well as other
existing institutions, and sought to establish what they called a 'New World
Order', or 'Universal Republic'."
"The famous magician and occultist, Cagliostro, was initiated into
the Illuminati in 1783. Many years later, he told Catholic priests about his
initiation. The initiation took place in an underground room near Frankfort,
Germany." "An iron box filled with papers was opened. The introducers took
from it a manuscript book [which] on the first page...read: 'We, Grand Masters
of the Templars...'then followed a form of oath, traced in blood. The book
stated that Illuminism was a conspiracy directed against thrones and altars, and
that the first blows were to attain France, that after the fall of the French
Monarchy, Rome must be attacked."
"By March, 1789, the 266 lodges controlled by the [French] Grand
Orient were all 'illuminized' without knowing it, for the Freemasons in general,
were not told the name of the sect that brought them these mysteries, and only a
very small number were really initiated into the secret....In the following
month the Revolution broke out." "Cagliostro was the Agent of the Templars, and therefore wrote to
the Freemasons of London that the time had come to begin the work of re-building
the Temple of the Eternal. He had introduced into Masonry a new Rite called the
Egyptian, and endeavored to resuscitate the mysterious worship of Isis. The
three letters 'l. P. D.' on his seal, were the initials of the words 'Lilia
pedibus destrue', 'tread under foot the Lilies [of France]', and a Masonic medal
of the sixteenth or seventeenth century has upon it a sword cutting off the
stalk of a lily, and the words 'talem dabit ultio messem', 'such harvest revenge
will give'." "In his Mémoires pour servir æ l'histoire du Jacobinisme published
in three volumes from 1797 to 1798, Barruel [a Jesuit scholar] derived all evils
from Mani and the Manicheans and demonstrated the existence of a continuous
historical conspiracy." "In the minds of Barruel and Cadet de Gassicourt [Le Tombeau de
Jacques de Molay] there was in invincible belief in a continuous historical
conspiracy, through which anarchist beliefs had passed from the medieval
heretics in the west and the Assassins in the east to the Templars and thence
through the four Templar lodges which were set up after the death of Jacques de
Molay in 1314." "All revolutionaries and murderers since then had been part of a
single 'Templar' society - including Cromwell, the murderer of Henry IV of
France, conspirators in Portugal, Brazil and Sweden, and of course Robespierre
and Danton." Eliphas Levi claimed that the French Revolution represented the
Templars' revenge for the persecution they had suffered in the thirteenth
century." "A Lodge inaugurated under the auspices of Rousseau, the fanatic
of Geneva became the center of the revolutionary movement in France, and a
Prince of the blood-royal went thither to swear the destruction of the
successors of Phillipe le Bel on the tomb Jacques de Molai. The registers of the
Order of Templars attest that the Regent, the Duc d'Orleans, was Grand Master of
that formidable Secret Society, and that his successors were the Duc de Maine,
the Prince of Bourbon-Condé and the Duc de Crossé-Brissace."
"It was impossible to unfold to the people the conspiracy of the
Templars against the Thrones and the Tiara...[To do so] would have been to
initiate the multitude into the secrets of the Masters, and to have uplifted the
veil of Isis."
"When Louis XVI was executed, half the work was done; and
thenceforth the Army of the Temple was to direct all its efforts against the
Pope." (2) The Reign of Terror
"In the spring and summer of 1789, an artificial shortage of grain
was created by Illuminist manipulations of the grain market. This produced a
famine so intense that it brought the nation to the edge of revolt. One of the
leading figures in this scheme was the Duc d'Orleans, the grand Master of the
grand Orient lodges. The Illuminatists claimed that their revolution would be
'for the benefit of the bourgeoisie with the people as instruments...' but in
reality the conspirators held up the food supplies and blocked all reforms in
the National Assembly to exacerbate the situation, and the populace starved.
"By July 14, the Bastille was stormed, from which a grand total of
only seven prisoners were 'liberated'. Even French historians now acknowledge
that the purpose of the revolutionaries was not to destroy the Bastille or
liberate the prisoners, but to steal arms and gunpowder. Thus armed, on July 22,
1789, the Jacobins set into motion one of the most elaborately timed
revolutionary exercises ever attempted. It would later be known as 'The great
Fear'.
"A panic was created simultaneously around the nation. Horsemen
rode from town to town telling the citizens that 'brigands' were approaching and
that everyone should take up arms. Citizens were instructed that the
conspirators were being harbored in the larger estates, the chateaux, and that
by edict of the King all should be torched. The people, obedient to their
monarch, complied. Soon, the flames of destruction were soon burning out of
control. Anarchy continued to grow as citizens began raiding and pillaging - and
not only for food." With the overthrow of the monarchy in 1792, "from the 10th of
August onwards, we find the tricolor replaced by the red flag of the social
revolution, whilst the cry of 'Vive notre roi d'Orleans!' gives way to the
masonic watchword 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." "Terror was rampant in the streets of Paris....In November 1793 a
campaign against religion was inaugurated by a massacre of the priests all over
France. In the cemeteries the cherished motto of the Illuminati, 'Death is an
eternal sleep', was posted by the order of the Illuminatus 'Anaxagoras'
Chaumette. In the churches of Paris, Feasts of Reason were celebrated where
women of easy morals were enthroned as goddesses. These were also known as
'Exoterion', and were modeled on Weishaupt's plan to honor the god of Love."
"In 1791, after returning to the United States from a three-year
stint as minister to France, he [Thomas Jefferson] described the carnage as 'so
beautiful a revolution' and stated that he hoped it would sweep the world. He
claimed to believe that 'most Frenchmen were Jacobins. Their excesses, if one
called them such, reflected that national will."
"By 1793, much of France lay in ruin. Industries were decimated,
libraries burned, the bourgeoisie all but wiped out. Even the great chemist
Lavoisier had been guillotined on the excuse that 'the Republic has no need of
chemists'."
"Toward the end of 1793, the new revolutionary Republic found
itself faced with hundreds of thousands of working men for whom it could not
find employment. The revolutionary leaders embarked upon a fearful new project
that was to be copied by tyrants ever after, called 'depopulation'.
"The idea was to reduce France's population of twenty-five million
down to either eight or sixteen million, depending on which source you believe.
Maximilien Robespierre believed depopulation to be
'indispensable'." "The system of the Terror was thus the answer to the problem of
unemployment - unemployment brought about on a vast scale by the destruction of
the luxury trades." "In France members of the revolutionary committees in charge of
the extermination toiled day and night over maps, calculating just how many
heads must be sacrificed in each town. Fearful Revolutionary Tribunals tried to
determine who would be killed, and a never-ending stream of victims marched to a
variety of deaths. In Nantes, 500 children were killed in one butchery, and 144
poor women who sewed shirts for the army were thrown into the river."
"...Estimates of the final death toll at the time ran around
300,000." "I have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam
& Eve left in every country, & left free, it would be better than it now
is...The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the
contest."
