The Founder of Illuminati
Adam Weishaupt was born in 1748 of Jewish parents but grew up in
the Catholic faith. When his father, George Weishaupt, died in
1754, young Adam was turned over to be
raised by the Jesuits by his godfather, Baron Ickstatt,
who was curator of the university of Ingolstadt in Bavaria.
He converted
to Protestantism when studying law at Ingolstadt.
He had also studied
classic religion and theology and the Eleusian and Mithrian
mysteries, and also the works of Pythagoras. We don't know
much about his childhood or his early life, and even his name itself is
somewhat of a mystery.
Adam means "the first man", "Weis" means "to
know" and "haupt" means "leader", which makes Adam
Weishaupts name mean "the first man to lead those who know". He
graduated from the University of Ingolstadt in 1768, and was made a
tutor and catechist. In 1772 he was made a professor of Law.
He was
initiated as a Freemason in 1774 in either Hanover or
Munich, but
found that no one in his order truly understood the occult significance
of the ceremonies. He decided to found his own organization, which he
did on the first of May 1776. This organization was first known
as "The Order of Perfectibilists" but became famous as the "Ordo
Illuminati Bavarensis", or the Illuminati for short.
Only
five people were present at the first meeting of the order, but it grew
rapidly and only a few years later it had chapterhouses all over
Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Hungary and Switzerland. Weishaupt
and his co-conspirators, notably Baron Knigge and a lawyer named
Zwack, had soon established a network of agents around Europe
that infiltrated courts and other places of power and reported back
useful gossip and information to Weishaupt.
The Illuminatis true
goals were shrouded in mystery. Because of Weishaupt's strong
anti-clerical and anti-royalistic views, some have assumed that the
Illuminati were some sort of proto-communistic organization dedicated to
bringing about a proletarian revolution.
Others have seen them as
anarchists, or descendants of the Cathars, or the Knights
Templar and the Assassins of Hassan En Sabbah, the "Old Man
on the Mountain", with whom the Knights Templar were rumored to be in
contact with.
Yet others have seen them as Satanic agents dedicated to
nothing less than the domination of the planet and the bringing
about of the Kingdom of Satan on Earth.
It is true that Weishaupt's
plans certainly was hostile to the Church of Rome and the monarchies of
Europe, and that he seemed to harbor what would today be called
"socialistic" leanings, but Weishaupt wasn't an atheist or agnostic.
There is little doubt that Weishaupt was a deeply religious man
in his own way.
Weishaupt said in a speech held shortly before the
French revolution:
"Salvation does not lie
where strong thrones are defended by swords, where the smoke of
censers ascend to heaven or where thousands of strong men pace the
rich fields of harvest. The revolution which is about to break will
be sterile if it is not complete."
This statement has often
been taken as to mean that Weishaupt was in fact a sort of communist,
and in a sense perhaps he was. One could think the above quote a
statement by Trotsky. However, as the Illuminati's true goals has always
been disputed it is difficult to find out what exactly was the
political, if such a dirty word may be used, or ideological raison
d´etre of the order.
Of course, the easiest way to be able to make an
educated guess is to study the actions of the order, as we will here. In
the year 1784 the Illuminati attempted a coup against the
Hapsburgs, but the plot was revealed by police-spies that had
infiltrated the order on orders from the king.
This led to the total ban
of all secret societies in Bavaria, and membership was punishable by
death. This edict was signed in June 1784. Weishaupt was forced
to flee to a neighboring province in February 1785 and in March another
edict was passed, this one specifically outlawing the Illuminati.
The Illuminati was forced to
go underground in Bavaria and had to move its revolutionary
efforts elsewhere. Disaster again struck for the order when in July 1785
lightning struck an Illuminati courier, a man named Lanz, and
killed him and the horse he was riding. It is said that both Lanz and
the horse was charred to coal, but the saddlebags were almost intact.
In
them was found extensive documents that outlined the Illuminati's plans
for world domination and revolution, and also named several high ranking
Illuminati members, among them Zwack and Weishaupt.
Zwack
was arrested and his home raided in October 1786. Weishaupt's activities
after 1790 are disputed, several different versions of his life after
1790 exists. In Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's
famous
trilogy Illuminatus!, for instance, it is suggested that Weishaupt traveled to America and assumed the role of George Washington.
Others claim that
Weishaupt died in obscurity in 1830. I have chosen to continue to
try and trace the alleged influence of the Illuminati in the following
years as it is possible, however unlikely it may seem to those who take
a conventional view of history, that Weishaupt was directing things from
behind the scenes.
The French revolution of 1789 has been widely
attributed to the machinations of the Illuminati, and it's role has been
described as everything from "negligible" to "sole cause". Both
statements are an exaggeration, but it cannot be denied that several
persons who were intensively involved in the revolution was active
members, among others the Comte de Mirabeau, famous author,
orator, Freemason and arch-enemy of the Marquis de Sade.
Mirabeau is reported
to have said in a speech at the international Freemason convention in
Wilhelmsbad in 1782 that he was a member of an organization that was
influenced by the Knights Templar, and that their goal was to
destroy the Church and the monarchy so that the "Religion of Love" could
be established in France.
Of course, the Illuminati was not the only
secret revolutionary conspiracy around. There were plenty of others in
these turbulent years just before the revolution.
For instance, the
Marquis de Luchet, who were opposed to the Illuminati but
supportive of the revolution, said in a speech:
"There exists a
conspiracy in favor of despotism, against liberty, of incapacity
against talent, of vice against virtue, of ignorance against
enlightenment. This society aims to govern the world."
These inner conflicts among
those who supported the revolution was also seen in other secret
societies in France during this period. By the year 1788 almost every
lodge of Freemasons in Europe, as well as all courts, been infiltrated
by the agents of the Illuminati.
Despite this many of the
established lodges in France remained loyal to the king, and only a few
took part in the revolution. It is interesting to note that the very
first time anyone saw revolutionaries wearing the Phrygian cap,
supposed symbol of the Illuminati and the Phrygian mysteries, was
at the forced interruption of a theatrical performance of Le Suborneur
by the Marquis de Sade on Monday the 5th of March 1792.
Oddly
enough, no-one (except for a brief passage in Wilgus´ Illuminoids) has
to my knowledge suggested that the infamous Marquis was a member of the
Illuminati. Sometimes it seems that every famous person throughout
history has been pointed out as a member.
It is like Ambrose Bierce
wrote about the Freemasons in his The Devil's Dictionary:
"An order with secret
rites, grotesque ceremonies and fantastic costumes, which
originating in the reign of Charles II, among working artisans of
London, has been joined successively by the dead of past centuries
in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces all the generations
of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up
distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of Chaos
and the Formless Void.
The order was founded at
different times by
Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucius,
Tothmes and Buddha. Its emblems and symbols have been found in the
Catacombs of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and the
Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in
the Egyptian Pyramids -always by a Freemason."
The history of the
Illuminati, or it's supposed history as traced by various people, is
much like Bierce's´ satirical comment.
Ludwig XVI, the French king, wasn't unaware of the revolutionary
activities and general displeasure among the populace. In June 1789 he
tried to introduce some social reforms that he hoped would calm the
populace.
The king's greatest mistake was when he demanded that the
monarchy would be preserved and that the nobles were to retain the right
of veto in all future reforms. This led to minor rebellions that spread
and finally culminated in the taking of the Bastille.
Mirabeau
said in a speech shortly thereafter:
"The idolatry of the
monarchy has has received a death blow from the sons and daughters
of the Order of the Templars."
This statement suggests that
the Illuminati had ties to both the Cathars and the Knights
Templar. Under the later period of the revolution the influence of
the Illuminati becomes marked. The red Phrygian caps are used as symbol
of the revolutionaries, the symbol of the Illuminati, the eye in the
triangle, is present on many revolutionary documents printed in these
days.
Two years after Ludwig XVI failed escape attempt, on the 21st
of January 1793, he was executed, and it is said that when the
kings head fell an old man cried from the crowd:
"De Molay, thou
art avenged!"
De Molay was the leader of the Knights Templar who
was burned at the stake for witchcraft in March 1314 by the machinations
of Philip the Fair and Pope Clement V.
It should perhaps be
mentioned that before his execution De Molay was held prisoner in
the Bastille, the first "victim" of the Revolution. After the French
revolution the Illuminati faced new difficulties, partly because
of the confused political and social situation in France, and partly
because the rest of the royal houses of Europe panicked when they
realized what had happened in France and banned all secret societies.
Persecutions of Freemasons and Rosicrucian's began, and in 1792 an
ex-grandmaster of a Knights Templar inspired organization was lynched in
Versailles by an angry mob. Suspicion of all secret societies was
widespread, and increased when Robinson's
Proofs of a Conspiracy
was released in 1798. This volume contained an outline of the orders
supposed survival after it's suppression as the German Union, and how it
had engineered the Revolution.
The book caused widespread
fear in Europe and New England, and was one of the main reasons for the
ban against secret societies in most of Europe.
After the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte the days of the Illuminati in France were
numbered. Most of the existing Lodges of Freemasons and other secret
societies were infiltrated by the agents of Napoleon, who made sure to
remove all possible subversive organizations in order to consolidate his
power. Most conventional historians will argue that the Illuminati,
if it survived at all after the events of 1785-86, now was utterly
crushed.
Historians of the more
unconventional kind have argued that the Illuminati continues to thrive
and influence the world even today.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_illuminati_0a.htm
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_illuminati_0a.htm
