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THE ILLUMINATI – FOUNDERS OF A NEW WORLD ORDER?
"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." ~ Thomas Jefferson
Ever since Dan Brown wrote his bestselling novel, Angels and Demons, the Illuminati has been the subject of intense speculation among both the general public and the media alike. In his novel, Brown presents an intriguing scenario, one in which a highly secretive society that has been presumed extinct for several centuries establishes itself once again in order to continue its bloody feud against the Catholic church. But how much of the Brown plotline is based on fact? Did such a group ever exist and if so is it still functioning today?
When attempting to study the nature and activities of secret societies, it quickly becomes very difficult (occasionally well-nigh impossible) to separate fact from fiction, reality from centuries-old fabrication, the truth from downright lies. The case of the Illuminati is no exception and it is, in fact, even more difficult to distill the truth from all of the available information about this group owing to the huge public interest in new world orders, global conspiracy theories and shadowy organizations who supposedly control world affairs. Over the centuries, several groups have laid claim to the name Illuminati, boasting their possession of Gnostic texts or of other even more arcane information not otherwise available to the general public. The first known record of the name Illuminati comes in the second century AD when a self-styled prophet by the name of Montanus, who had previously belonged to the cult of Cybele, converted to Christianity. He then set up a group in direct opposition to the institutionalized church. Alongside the prophetesses, Prisca (or Priscilla) and Maxilla, Montanus’s most famous convert to the cause was the Catholic apologist Tertullian. But it is the fourth-century historian, Eusebius, who best illustrates Montanus’s extraordinary gifts, describing how converts underwent all manner of religious experiences including ‘speaking in tongues’ and receiving apocalyptic visions.
Their opposition and their recent heresy which has separated them from the Church arose on the following account […] a recent convert, Montanus by name, through his unquenchable desire for leadership, gave the adversary opportunity against him. And he became beside himself […] in a sort of frenzy and ecstasy, he raved and began to babble and utter strange things, prophesying in a manner contrary to the custom of the Church handed down by tradition from the beginning.
Aside from these reveries however, what lay at the heart of Montanus’s teachings was a type of ‘end-of-the-world’ scenario so beloved of almost all the sects studied in this book. To help his followers come to terms with his apocalyptic vision, Montanus laid down a strict moral code for them to follow, one that would purify the Christian soul and deter disciples from coveting material goods. This form of illuminism flourished for several centuries, particularly in Asia Minor, before gradually diminishing until, in the ninth century, it died out altogether.
Nothing was then heard of the Illuminati in any shape or form until, in fifteenth-and sixteenth-century Spain, a group calling themselves the Alumbrado (which roughly translates as ‘Illuminati’) appeared. The Alumbrado claimed to be in direct communion with the Holy Spirit and stated that all outward forms of religious adherence, such as the observance of the liturgy, were unnecessary. One of their earliest leaders, who wholeheartedly embraced these teachings, was a laborer’s daughter from Salamanca known as La Beata de Piedrahita. She declared that she held long conversations with both Jesus and the Virgin Mary, claims that quite naturally brought her to the attention of the Inquisition. Miraculously, she escaped death at the hands of her interogators, although others weren’t quite as lucky. In Toledo, adherents to the Alumbrado were subjected to severe beatings and imprisonment while the Inquisition served no less than three separate edicts against the group, issued in 1568, 1574 and 1623.
It was also in 1623 that a movement known as the Illuminés was established in France (some say having traveled up from Seville in Spain). Quite rapidly this movement attained a strong following in the Picardy region although very little documentation remains as to the nature of the group, its beliefs or practices. What is generally agreed upon is that Pierce Guérin, the curé of Saint-Georges de Roye, who founded his own group called the Gurinets, joined the Illuminés in 1634.
Over a century later, in 1772, yet another group called the Illuminés came to light in the south of France, but while little is known about the Picardy sect, even less is known about this second organization. Finally, we arrive at perhaps the best known of all the Illuminati-style societies, which started in eighteenth-century Bavaria.
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| Adam Weishaupt |
Adam Weishaupt was born on 6 February 1748 in Ingolstadt and as a young boy was educated by Jesuit priests who instilled in him not only discretion, but also respect for the hierarchic obedience of the Society of Jesus (or Jesuits). Yet despite his early allegiance to the order, his appointment as Professor of Natural and Canon Law at the University of Ingolstadt in 1775 angered his teachers for not only did he grow to espouse seriously liberal, cosmopolitan views, but he also ‘condemned bigotry and superstitious Priests.’
Not everyone was against him however, for soon Weishaupt had earned a good reputation amongst both students and professors alike and even those at neighboring universities were impressed by his teachings. Perhaps this support afforded Weishaupt confidence, and no doubt this in turn led to the suggestion that he should become the leader of a more influential group.
On 1 May 1776, with the help of Baron Adolph von Knigge, Weishaupt formed the ‘Order of Perfectibilists’, which later became known as the Illuminati. Interestingly, some historians have since claimed that this founding date marks the origin of the Communist May Day observance, although there is little evidence to support the theory. What is certain is that in 1777, Weishaupt was invited to join a Freemasonry Lodge, the Theodor zum guten Rath (Lodge Theodor), in Munich. He accepted the invitation even though most of his energies were still devoted to the Illuminati, whose doctrine was a curious mixture of Islamic mysticism, Jesuit mental discipline and some of Freemasonry’s own teachings, many of which also cherished the idea of ‘illumination’. Nonetheless, Weishaupt’s group was a law unto itself with its own agenda and initiatives. Its declared mission was an adherence to a strict code of morality in order to create a society of men strong enough to oppose the forces of evil.
Adam Weishaupt was Professor of Natural and Canon Law at the University of Ingolstadt in 1775, but was sacked from his post nine years later after forming a group called the Order of Perfectibilists, later known as the Illuminati.
Yet, despite being completely separate from the Freemasons, an apocryphal story has grown up around the conception of the Illuminati, a story that relates how a courier by the name of Lanz, who had recently joined the Illuminati, was struck down by a bolt of lightning whilst carrying a bundle of Weishaupt’s most important papers. Lanz died, but when his body was discovered by the authorities, so too were Weishaupt’s documents which were said to reveal a direct link between his group and that of Freemasonry. Perhaps this is why, in Dan Brown’s novel, a basic premise of the story is that in the sixteenth century the Illuminati (who Robert Langdon believes had already established themselves in Italy), having been banished from Rome, were taken in by the Bavarian Freemasons after which they set about using the latter as a front for their activities, effectively forming a secret society within a secret society. They then set their sights on the United States, once again using the Freemasons as a front in order to attain a foothold on American soil. ‘The Illuminati,’ says Langdon, ‘took advantage of the infiltration and helped found banks, universities, and industry to finance their ultimate quest [ …] The creation of a single unified world state – a kind of secular New World Order.’3
This is a wonderful idea, and one that illustrates how clever Brown is when it comes to weaving good yarns, but there is little evidence to support his plotline and as for the story of Lanz, there is also little doubt in most historians’ minds that the anecdote was an invention by anti-Masonic writers and Jesuit groups opposed to Weishaupt and his new order. There was, after all, little in Weishaupt’s teachings that mainstream religion could warm to. Take for example this early nineteenth-century analysis of Weishaupt’s methods and underlying agenda:
His scheme appears to be calculated, not so much for uniting persons of similar sentiments in one society, as for seducing those of opposite inclinations, and by a most artful and detestable process, gradually obliterating from their minds every moral and religious sentiment. It is in this view principally that this plan of seduction calls for the attention of mankind, as it develops the secret, insidious policy by which the agents of faction and infidelity lead on their disciples, still concealing their real designs, until the mind is involved in a maze of error, or entangled in snares from which there is no retreat.’
By 1780, the Illuminati had grown in strength, with its co-founder, Knigge, recording how the group had enrolled approximately two thousand members throughout Europe. Weishaupt was delighted. His mission of ‘illuminating’ his disciples’ minds through reasoned argument was working and seemed to complement the oncoming Enlightenment when radical free thinkers such as Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau were at work espousing, amongst other theories, the concept that religion should be ‘reasonable’ and consequently result in the highest moral behavior of its adherents.
But this was Bavaria in the mid-eighteenth century – a highly conservative, inward-looking state dominated by the Roman Catholic church who did not take kindly to Weishaupt’s type of radical rationalism, nor his arguments that nations and religions should be swept away alongside such institutionalized ideas as property and marriage. As a result, the Illuminati was labeled seditious and in 1784 the Bavarian government banned the Society. Weishaupt subsequently lost his position at Ingolstadt University and fled Bavaria to sanctuary in Gotha.
Despite the apparent collapse of the Illuminati, the flood of anti-Illuminati literature written by those opposed to the group’s beliefs means that, ironically, we know more about the group today than we would ever otherwise have done. Two books in particular stand out: Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe and which was published in Ireland in 1797, written by John Robison, a professor at Edinburgh University, and a work by Abbé Augustin Barruel, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism (also published in 1797), a four-volume tome that contains several vivid conspiracy theories involving not only the Illuminati but also the Freemasons, the Knights Templar and the Rosicrucians. Each of these sects, according to the author, were aiming to overthrow not only religion but also all political institutions and governments.
Of the four volumes of Barruél’s book, the first two were dedicated to exposing the campaign against Christianity by French and European philosophers such as Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau. The third volume concerns the Illuminati – in particular, how Weishaupt recruited several French, German and other European Freemasonry leaders to join his new society, thus gathering together all the different factions under the Illuminati’s overall control. In the fourth volume Barruél accuses the Illuminati of being the true cause behind the French Revolution (1789), an episode from which, he claims, France never truly recovered.
Both Barruel’s book and that of Robison had a tremendous effect when they were first published and even after several decades their accusations were being read by eminent statesmen. For example, George Washington in America was said to have drawn the conclusion that every government was in danger from Illuminists trying to overthrow them by bringing revolutionary Jacobinism into play. Nor was Washington alone in his fears. Other prominent Americans (indeed, nearly everyone except Washington’s own Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson) feared the Illuminists and added to Barruel’s and Robison’s theories by producing books of their own. One of these was Seth Payson who wrote Proof of the Illuminati, which was first published in 1802. Among numerous accusations to be found in its pages is the printing of a letter which was supposed to have been sent by Weishaupt (under the pseudonym ‘Spartacus’) to Hertel Canon of Munich (under the pseudonym ‘Marius’) giving details of how he has made his sister-in-law pregnant. ‘We have already made several attempts to destroy the child,’ wrote Spartacus, ‘[ … ] Could I depend on Celse’s secrecy (Professor Buder at Munich), he could be of great service to me; he had promised me his aid three years ago. Mention it to him if you think it proper.’5
Whether the letter is real or not, the obvious conclusion to be drawn from its inclusion in Payson’s book is that every attempt was being made by the religious establishment to blacken Weishaupt’s reputation. Not that the abortion claim was the worst of the mud being slung in his direction, for Payson also accuses Weishaupt of brainwashing his devotees and of seducing them so that they would act out his every wish.
Nevertheless, books such as those by Robison, Barruel and Payson do give us – even if only a fraction of what they write is true – a fascinating insight into Weishaupt’s secret order. Robison is a pains to point out that, although Weishaupt himself preferred to remain a shadowy figure within the society, other members of his order were more prominent so that they could actively recruit new members. ‘These are the Minervals,’ states Robison. ‘They are the only visible members of the Illuminati and in order for a candidate to be admitted to the group, he has to make himself known to a Minerval who in turn reports the request to the council. After this, a certain amount of time passes during which the candidate is secretly observed. If he is deemed unfit, nothing more is made of his request; if on the other hand he is successful, he receives an invitation to attend a secret conference where he is admitted as a Novitiate.’
‘But,’ wrote Payson in true conspiratorial style, ‘the Insinuators are the principal agents for propagating the order. These are invisible spies, seeking whom they may devour, who enter on their tablets, with which they are always to be furnished, the names of such as they judge would be useful to the order, with the reasons for or against their admission.’6
By employing such emotive language, it is little wonder that the Illuminati’s reputation was one to be feared. But the abuse didn’t stop there for Payson goes on to explain how the Insinuators, once they have chosen a target, return to ‘seduce’ these unwilling victims until, having been brainwashed, they become a pupil of the Illuminati.
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In the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the gift of prophecy is mentioned many times throughout the Holy Books. During the time of the ancients, prophets were few and far between but their messages were spot on for the future events they would predict. Yet the ultimate gift of prophecy will arise during what the Christians refer to as the End Times and the Jews call the End of the Age, when many, both young and old alike, will have prophetic dreams and visions.
Yet, a holy prophet not only predicts future occurrences, but speaks of present times as well. This was quite true during the 8th century BC, when the focus of the ancient prophets message turned more toward the people during that era. 
While the early Christians were intrigued with spiritual gifts, the Apostle Paul pointed out that prophecy was a "spiritual speech" that was intended to divinely inspire through instruction, as well as strengthen others. In his epistle to the Romans, Paul wrote:
The spiritual gift of prophecy is also listed among the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:10. The word “prophecy”, according to Greek translation, simply means to “speak forth”, to interpret the purposes of God, or to make known the truth of God which is designed to influence people. Some scholars believe that many people misunderstand the "gift of prophecy" to be the ability to predict the future. While other critics state that knowing something about future happenstances may sometimes have been an aspect of the gift of prophecy, but it was primarily a gift of proclamation (forth-telling), not prediction (fore-telling). 
