By Terry Melanson, Sept. 12th, 2008
Jesuiten-Freymauer-RosenkreuzerNB: My apologies to those who’ve been waiting three years for this “Part Two.” As many of you know, since the posting of my “Illuminati Conspiracy Part One: Exegesis on the Available Evidence” in August 2005, I have been hard at work on a book about the Bavarian Illuminati. So, necessarily, I had to put on hold the planned three part series. As the book is finished and scheduled for a November 2008 release, I am free to proceed. (Part two is not what I had originally planned on writing, but nonetheless, it is original and distinct from the book.) – TM

Orientation: The Bavarian Illuminati were the antagonists of the Jesuits, and vice versa

I have chosen to critique parts of | this webpage | as a means to inform the reader on certain facts essential to a proper understanding of the 18th Century Bavarian Order of Illuminati. The other reason is this: a particularly rabid and extremely annoying “Jesuits-rule-the-world” theorist who spams many YahooGroups (always in the customary all-caps shouting mode), had deigned this “Religious Counterfeits” webpage as the proper authority – I am not sure why – on the following theories: 1) that Adam Weishaupt was a Jesuit – not just Jesuit-trained, but a Jesuit priest; and 2) that the Illuminati, therefore, are synonymous with the Jesuits and, in fact, the two are the same (that is, the former was merely the organ of the latter, and the proof of said assertion is the fact that Weishaupt was supposedly a Jesuit himself). To someone who has even a modicum of familiarity with the 18th-Century European Enlightenment, this is indeed a preposterous claim; it’s based upon a falsehood – Weishaupt being a Jesuit – and displays ignorance of the history of the period to which we speak.
What follows is a quote/rebuttal format which will hopefully put to rest certain erroneous assertions being claimed by the Jesuits=Illuminati theorists.
Quote: There have always been Occultists who practiced the process of Illumination, but the term “Illuminati” was used first in the 15th Century by enthusiasts in the Occult Arts, signifying those who claimed to possess “light” directly communicated from some higher source, through mysticism.
The first occurrence of “Illuminati” was not in the 15th century. “Illuminati” has been used by followers of Mani, or Manes (Manichaeism; the apostles of light) – they called him the supreme illuminator. The Virgin Mary, too, was given the appellation “Maria Illuminatrix” and the “illuminated/illuminator.” Jewish Kabbalists were called Illuminati. And lest the reader get the impression it is only used in the occult or by the Roman Catholic Church, be reminded that in Calvin’s Institutes, the theologian mentions twenty times the word Illuminati and Illuminatus, four times (see Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority (Vol. IV), Good News Publishers, 1999, p. 290; the statistical calculation of the words was compiled by the first editor of the magazine Christianity Today, Carl. F. H. Henry, and presented at the above-cited page, along with other keywords in Calvin’s Latin texts such as “Illuminated” and “Illuminate.”)

Quote: We find the name “Illuminati” in Spain about the end of the 15th Century. The Founder of the Jesuit Order, Ignatius Loyola classed himself as a member of the Illuminati. And, from time to time, here and there, small bodies of those called “The Illuminati”, sometimes known as Rosicrucians” rose into publicity for a short period.
Yes, the Alumbrados (or Aluminados) literally means Illuminati – dubbed so because of their Gnostic, Kabbalistic (some were Jewish conversos), mystical, almost Quietist tendencies. But Loyola didn’t, as is dishonestly claimed, class “himself as a member.” In fact, just the opposite – he denied it outright. He was questioned on a couple of occasions by the Inquisition on exactly this point, and each time he vehemently refuted the charges. (I don’t believe him, myself. But I would be lying if I claimed Loyola had “classed himself a member.”)
These Alumbrados have no relation whatsoever to the Illuminatenorden of the 18th Century. The former were mystically inclined ascetics, while the latter was a child, through and through, of the rationalist philosophes of the Enlightenment and the “Aufklärung” popularphilosophen in German speaking lands.
Quote: Weishaupt was a Jesuit Priest who was involved in “Illumination” or Witchcraft.
Not true, on both counts. As I had written before, in the notes to “Illuminati Conspiracy Part One: Exegesis on the Available Evidence” in 2005, “Weishaupt was indeed taught by the Jesuits, though he himself wasn’t one of them. Many prominent thinkers – such as Voltaire, Descartes, and Diderot – were trained by Jesuits, but I’ve yet to see the same inaccuracy applied to them.” Don’t take my word for it, though. Feel free to consult real historians on the Bavarian Illuminati: René Le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande (1914; PhD dissertation); Leopold Engel, Geschichte des Illuminaten-ordens (1906); Peggy Pawlowski, Der Beitrag Johann Adam Weishaupts zur Pädagogik des Illuminatismus (2004; PhD dissertation). Also, in addition to Peggy Pawlowski, see the work of the three living experts on the Illuminati: Dr. Hermann Schüttler, Reinhard Markner, and Dr. Monika Neugebauer-Wölk.
None of the foregoing historians repeat the falsehood that Weishaupt was a Jesuit; and neither do Barruel (1798) or Robison (1798), even Vernon Stauffer (1916). There’s no need to argue the point further. The Illuminati contemporaries, and the later experts on the subject, are unanimous. They get it right that Weishaupt was only educated by the Jesuits, had never been one himself, and was in fact pathologically hostile toward the Jesuits or Jesuitism – anything to do with monasticism, religious absolutism, or “superstitious folly” and obscurantism. Before and after the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, his quarrels with the Jesuit staff at the University of Ingolstadt were legendary. Another interesting fact – as opposed to the made up ones – is that the feeling was mutual. So much so, that the real persecuting hand behind the suppression of the Illuminati in Bavaria descended from the fanatic “ex”-Jesuit and court confessor, Ignaz Franck. The latter also happened to be the head of the Munich Circle of the Golden and Rosy Cross (Gold- und Rosenkreuzer) – thus the rumours of a joint Rosicrucian-Jesuit plot to destroy the Illuminati doesn’t seem so far fetched.* The Rosicrucians at that time had adhered to a zealous type of mystical conservatism. Hence the basic dialectic of the Enlightenment was this: Philosophes + Freemasonry + Illuminati (opposing) Jesuits + the Church + Rosicrucians. Anything challenging this basic analysis – easily apprehended even to a newbie of 18th century European history – and you’d better come armed with incredibly persuasive evidence.
* More details can be found in my forthcoming book, Perfectibilists: The 18th Century Bavarian Order of the Illuminati; but if you’d like a head-start, consult René Le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la Franc-Maçonnerie Allemande [Paris: 1914], Archè reprint, 2001; and Klaus Epstein, The Genesis of German Conservatism, Princeton University Press, 1966.
As far as Religious Counterfeits’ wishful charge of “witchcraft,” one only need consult the Original Writings of Adam Weishaupt himself to realize that he had nothing but contempt for such things. The letters between members of the Order were confiscated by force, so the opinions expressed therein were genuine, candid and real. In letters to his subordinates, Weishaupt reveals himself as an extreme rationalist; a worshipper of “reason,” as it was defined by the radical anti-obscurantist philosophers of the Enlightenment (viz. Montesquieu, Rousseau, d’Holbach, Helvétius, even Hume, Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith).
Quote: Ingolstadt University in Bavaria had been a Jesuit Institution for many years. Weishaupt was professor of Canon Law there at Ingolstadt. He wanted to see the Jesuit Order come back into power, and eventually, he published a Plan to help the Jesuits take over the world.
Weishaupt was an enemy of the Jesuits, as was the whole of the Illuminati itself. One can even faithfully describe the entire enterprise as a well-oiled propaganda machine intent on influencing public opinion against the Jesuit Order, and everything it stood for. They even had their own printers churning out copies of anti-Jesuit classics;* and their greatest recruits for the Order were those who’d already been known as master Jesuit hunters extraordinaire – Bode, Nicolai and Knigge.
* See Einige Originalschriften des Illuminatenordens, p. 221; cf. Augustin Barruel, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism [1798], Real-View-Books Classics Reprint, 2002, p. 586.
Weishaupt didn’t publish “a plan to help the Jesuits take over the World,” either. Nonsense! Weishaupt had a plan alright, but it was for the Illuminati (after having vanquished the Jesuits completely and utterly) to be the sole arbitrator over the direction of the entire Enlightenment: an anarchistic, Rousseauian-primitivist, Archimedean lever for social reorganization. Weishaupt was a narcissistic megalomaniac, and this was the main reason why his second in command, Baron von Knigge, had finally quit in a huff. Furthermore, Weishaupt’s plan wasn’t published by him; it was published by the Bavarian authorities after raids into the domiciles of von Zwack (1786) and de Bassus (1787), respectively: Einige Originalschriften des Illuminatenordens (1787), and Nachtrag von weitern Originalschriften, welche die Illuminatensekte (1787).
Quote: This Plan is laid out in a book called “Proofs of a Conspiracy” by John Robison, in 1798, and is discussed in other books as well: “Weishaupt had long been scheming the establishment of an Association or Order, which in time, should govern the world! In his first fervor and high expectations, he hinted to several ex-Jesuits the probability of their recovering, under a new name, the influence which they formerly possessed, and of being again of great service to society, by directing the education of youth of distinction, now emancipated from all civil and religious prejudices.” -Proofs of a Conspiracy, John Robison, pg. 59
This reveals the author’s dishonesty. The quote is taken out of context. Here’s what should have been cited, pp. 58-9 (the short excerpt above italicized, and with my own bold emphasis).
… the emancipation of his young hearers from the terrors of superstition. I suppose also that this was the more agreeable to him, as it procured him the triumph over the Jesuits, with whom he had long struggled for the direction of the university.
This was in 1777. Weishaupt had long been scheming the establishment of an Association or Order, which, in time, should govern the world. In his first fervour and high expectations, he hinted to several Ex-Jesuits the probability of their recovering, under a new name, the influence which they formerly possessed, and of being again of great service to society, by directing the education of youth of distinction, now emancipated from all civil and religious prejudices. He prevailed on some to join him, but they all retracted but two. After this disappointment Weishaupt became the implacable enemy of the Jesuits; and his sanguine temper made him frequently lay himself open to their piercing eye, and drew on him their keenest resentment, and at last made him the victim of their enmity.
Now, with the quote fully contextualized, the meaning is clear. Robison basically reiterated what I have already said herein. Robison’s points are thus: 1) there was a struggle with the Jesuits at the University of Ingolstadt; 2) Weishaupt’s liberal teaching methods had gained him the upper-hand as far as the indoctrination of young minds; 3) he instituted his Illuminati as a means to maintain supremacy – though, unbelievably, as has already been pointed out by many, Robison gets the date wrong of when the Illuminati had actually been instituted (1777, as opposed to 1776); 4) he had solicited some “ex”-Jesuits, enticing them with a promise of gaining a semblance of the power which they had previously held; 5) in the end most didn’t fall for it – except for two; and 6) this caused more acute anti-Jesuitism (“became the implacable enemy of the Jesuits“) on the part of Weishaupt, and ditto for the Jesuits.
It is not clear who the Jesuits were that Weishaupt had tried to recruit, but one thing is for sure: his greatest mistake was allowing the likes of Johann Sulpitius Marquis de Cosandey (Xenophon=alias), Joseph von Utzschneider (Hellanicus Lesbius/Seneca), Georg Grünberger (Archytas), Vitus Renner (Anaximander) and Georg Maximilian Johann von Dillis (Timagoras) to join – all of whom had extensive connections with the Jesuits and/or were priests (such as the first and the last), and were, in the end, as defectors and denunciators, the cause of the persecutions of the Order in Bavaria.
Another quote from Robison (a letter from Zwack to Weishaupt) which “Religious Counterfeits” neglected to show its readers, is: “By the activity of our Brethren [the Illuminati], the Jesuits have been kept out of all the professorial chairs at Ingolstadt, and our friends [the Illuminati and Masons] prevail … We have been very successful against the Jesuits, and brought things to such a bearing, that their revenues, such as the Mission, the Golden Alms, the Exercises, and the Conversion Box, are now under the management of our friends” (Robison, op. cit., p. 114; emphasis mine). And this: “Philo [Baron von Knigge] had gained his good opinion by the violent attack which he had published on the Jesuits and Rosycrucians [sic] by the orders of Spartacus [Weishaupt]” (Ibid., p. 161; emphasis mine).
It doesn’t get any more straightforward than this. The mutual antagonism was palpable, and had achieved legendary status by the time Robison wrote those words more than ten years later.
***
What we have just learned is that the real facts about the Illuminati were the exact opposite of what the Jesuits=Illuminati purveyors would have you believe. By selective quoting and convenient omission, the Religious Counterfeits’ have deprived their readers of the fact that Robison had an opinion (based upon primary documents and contemporary knowledge) which was in complete contradiction to that of their own. This is a favorite tactic of the really bad conspiracy theorists; whole volumes – an entire house of cards – are built upon this ruse.
Eric Jon Phelps utilizes the same technique. In his Vatican Assassins (p. 225), for instance, he ostensibly quotes from Nesta Webster. However, the excerpt omits some crucial remarks, which, if they had been left in, would have challenged his theories, even to the point of having the opposite desired effect.
What follows is a side-by-side comparison of the relevant material. On the left as it appears in Webster’s Secret Societies & Subversive Movements, and on the right as Phelps has quoted it.
Secret Societies & Subversive Movements [1924], A&B Publishers Group, 1998, pp. 196-7: Vatican Assassins, Second Edition, 2004, p. 225:
That Weishaupt was not the originator of the system he named Illuminism will be already apparent to every reader of the present work… How did these Oriental methods penetrate to the Bavarian professor? According to certain writers, through the Jesuits. The fact that Weishaupt had been brought up by this Order has provided the enemies of the Jesuits with the argument that they were the secret inspirers of the Illuminati. Mr. Gould, indeed, has attributed most of the errors of the latter to this source; Weishaupt, he writes, incurred “the implacable enmity of the Jesuits, to whose intrigues he was incessantly exposed.” In reality precisely the opposite was the case, for, as we shall see, it was Weishaupt who perpetually intrigued against the Jesuits. That Weishaupt did, however, draw to a certain extent on Jesuit methods of training is recognized even by Barruel, himself a Jesuit, who, quoting Mirabeau, says that Weishaupt “admired above all those laws, that régime of the Jesuits, which, under one head, made men dispersed over the universe tend towards the same goal; he felt that one could imitate their methods whilst holding views diametrically opposed.” [Emphasis mine] “That Weishaupt was not the originator of the system he named ‘Illuminism’ will be already apparent to every reader of the present work . . . How did these Oriental methods penetrate to the Bavarian professor? According to certain writers, through the Jesuits. The fact that Weishaupt had been brought up by this Order has provided the enemies of the Jesuits with the argument that they were the secret inspirers of the Illuminati . . . That Weishaupt did, however, draw to a certain extent on Jesuit methods of training is recognized even by Barruel, himself a Jesuit [and the most influential historian of the French Revolution], who, quoting Mirabeau, says that Weishaupt, ‘admired above all those laws, that regime of the Jesuits, which, under one head [the Jesuit General], made men dispersed over the universe tend towards the same goal . . . ‘ ” [Emphasis added (by Phelps)]
What a candid writer would do in a situation like this would be to quote the entirety of the excerpt. If the author’s theory is really all it’s cracked up to be, they should easily be able to reason away the appearance of these contradictory views. Instead, Phelps twists the quote to suit his own agenda: Webster was saying the exact opposite to what Phelps had attempted to insinuate.
Further, Webster was no fool. She intelligently and correctly assessed the situation:
The fact is that the accusation of Jesuit intrigue behind secret societies has emanated principally from the secret societies themselves and would appear to have been a device adopted by them to cover their own tracks. No good evidence has ever been brought forward in support of their contention. … The Marquis de Luchet, who was no friend of the Jesuits, shows the absurdity of confounding their aims with those of either the Freemasons or the Illuminati, and describes all three as animated by wholly different purposes.
In all these questions it is necessary to seek a motive. I have no personal interest in defending the Jesuits, but I ask: what motive could the Jesuits have in forming or supporting a conspiracy directed against all thrones and altars? It has been answered me that the Jesuits at this period cared nothing for thrones and altars, but only for temporal power; yet–even accepting this unwarrantable hypothesis–how was this power to be exercised except through thrones and altars? Was it not through princes and the Church that the Jesuits had been able to bring their influence to bear on affairs of state? In an irreligious Republic, as events afterwards proved, the power of the whole clergy was bound to be destroyed. The truth is then, that, far from abetting the Illuminati, the Jesuits were their most formidable opponents, the only body of men sufficiently learned, astute, and well organized to outwit the schemes of Weishaupt. In suppressing the Jesuits it is possible that the Old Régime removed the only barrier capable of resisting the tide of revolution.
Weishaupt indeed, as we know, detested the Jesuits, and took from them only certain methods of discipline, of ensuring obedience or of acquiring influence over the minds of his disciples; his aims were entirely different. (Webster, op. cit., pp. 198-9; emphasis mine)
This is what you call a measured and rational summation. It conforms to the historical facts in every conceivable way. Unlike the “Religious Counterfeits” and Phelps, Webster had read the Original Writings of the Illuminati. And, as I’ve said before, these writings – confiscated against their will – make it clear that Illuminati intrigue was constantly being directed against the, incalculably-hated, Sons of Loyola. Ironically, in this respect, Phelps et al. are brothers in arms with Weishaupt, the Illuminati, radical Freemasonry, and especially the later 19th century occult movement of Theosophy. (Madame Blavatsky’s modus operandi was in keeping with the tradition of her antecedents. Her fear and hatred of the Jesuits bordered on the pathological: see, for instance, “Theosophy of Jesuitism,” “Jesuitry and Masonry (1 of 6),” “Jesuitry and Masonry (2 of 6),” “Jesuitry and Masonry (3 of 6),” “Jesuitry and Masonry (4 of 6),” “Jesuitry and Masonry (5 of 6),” “Jesuitry and Masonry (6 of 6),” and “Was Cagliostro a ‘Charlatan’?“)
***

The Stratagems of Weishaupt, Knigge, Nicolai, and Bode

Anti-Jesuits alleged that Jesuits were engaged in a vast conspiracy aimed to destroy the new revolutionary order. Jesuits were for the first time accused of having infiltrated Freemasonry, apparently with the purpose of restoring Catholicism to its former glories. Similarities in ritual forms, the hierarchy of membership, and the notion of blind obedience to superiors, as well as claims that the Masons derived from the Catholic Knights Templar and were linked to the Stuart pretender, made such claims plausible. Anti-Jesuits, as before, included both Protestants hostile to Catholicism, led by the publicists, Friedrich Nicolai and Johann Joachim Christoph Bode, and Enlightened Catholics, especially associated with the Illuminati, a secret society that promoted secularism.
– Roisin Healy, The Jesuit Specter in Imperial Germany (BRILL, 2003), p. 32.
Opposition to the Jesuits was a central issue for many of the Masonic subgroupings; the Rosicrucians had arisen “almost as a mirror image of the Jesuit Order”; and Adam Weishaupt had conceived the Order of Illuminati as an anti-Jesuit organization modeled upon Jesuitical methods and organizational forms. The Jesuits responded in kind: it was widely believed that the suppression of the Illuminati in Bavaria was instigated by them.
– Maynard Solomon, Mozart: A Life (HarperPerennial, 1996), p. 328.
On 13 March, 1778, Adam Weishaupt (Spartacus) wrote a letter to Maximilian Balthasar Ludwig Edler von Merz (Tiberius), one of the five original members of the Illuminati and an Areopagite. One section reads: “We have … in Munich our own printer. It is from there that you’ll soon receive, printed at our expense, the Relatio de strategmatis et sophismatis Polchis S. I. by Alphonsus de Vargas” (Einige Originalschriften des Illuminatenordens, p. 221). That is, Relatio ad Reges et Principes Christianos De Stratagematis et Sophismatis politicis Societatis Jesu ad Monarchiam orbis terrarum sibi confirmandam [A Report to the Christian Kings and Princes on the Stratagems and Political Sophisms of the Jesuits For World Domination]; or, as Juan Antonio Llorente has translated its title, An Exposition made by Alphonsa de Vargas to the Christian Kings and Princes, of the Stratagems and political Artifices which the Members of the Society of Jesus employ to establish a universal Monarchy in their favour, a Work which proves the deceit of the Jesuits towards the Kings and Nations who have received them favourably; their Perfidy and Disobedience, even to the Pope, and the immoderate Desire of Innovation which they have always shewn in Matters of Religion (see The History of the Inquisition of Spain, from the Time of Its Establishment to the Reign of Ferdinand VII, London: G. B. Whittaker, 1826, p. 280).
First printed at Rome in 1636, Alphonsus de Vargas was one of the pseudonyms of Caspar Schoppe [or Gaspar Scioppius] (1576-1649); and his above mentioned work was recommended reading for all Illuminati initiates. By 1778, Schoppe’s Stratagems and Political Sophisms of the Jesuits was a classic and a much sought-after work of anti-Jesuitism. Weishaupt, by printing a new edition at the expense of the Illuminati, had put into motion one of the Illuminati’s own Strategmatis: the Jesuits must be discredited, exposed, hunted and driven out. Weishaupt’s personal war with the Society of Jesus had already begun at Ingolstadt University. Now, with the Illuminati in full operation, the growing assets of the Order could be put to use.
The Kassel Strict Observance Lodge 'Zum gekrönten Löwen' [of the Crowned Lion]
The Kassel Strict Observance Lodge ‘Zum gekrönten Löwen’ [of the Crowned Lion] medallion 1743

In July, 1780, the Illuminati had managed to insinuate its most zealous initiate thus far: Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwig Baron von Knigge (1752 Bredenbeck, Germany – 1796 Bremen, Germany). Knigge (Philo Judaeus), having been extremely fascinated with secret societies and occultism, applied for membership in Freemasonry at the earliest possible age. The Kassel Strict Observance Lodge ‘Zum gekrönten Löwen’ [of the Crowned Lion] accepted him into the fold in 1772, and in 1779 he became a knight of the rite of Strict Observance (alias, ‘Eques a Cygno’ [Knight of the Swan]).