booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

their conscience and of their God is even more to be obeyed than that of their superiors. There is not a single
one who, in the event that his superiors should order him to do things contrary to the duties of a Christian or
of a good man, would not see an exception to be made to the obedience which he has sworn. This exception
is often expressed and always clearly announced in all religious institutions; it is above all formal and positively
repeated many times in that of the Jesuits. They are ordered to obey their superiors, but it is in the
event that they see no sin in obeying, ubi non cerneretur peccatum (Constitution des Jésuites, part 3, chapter
1, pang. 2, vol. i., édition de Prague).[5]
Indeed, implicit obedience and the total surrender of one's own will and judgement forms the foundation
of all military discipline; " theirs not to reason why, theirs not to make reply " is everywhere recognized as
the duty of soldiers. The Jesuits being in a sense a military Order, acknowledging a General at their head,
are bound by the same obligation. Weishaupt's system was something totally different. For whilst all soldiers
and all Jesuits, when obeying their superiors, are well aware of the goal towards which they are tending,
Weishaupt's followers were enlisted by the most subtle methods of deception and led on towards a goal
entirely unknown to them. It is this that, as we shall see later, constitutes the whole difference between honest
and dishonest secret societies. 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 Jesuits, unlike the Templars and the Illuminati, were simply suppressed in 1773 without the
formality of a trial, and were therefore never given the opportunity to answer the charges brought against
them, nor, as in the case of these other Orders, were their secret statutes-if any such existed-brought to light.
The only document ever produced in proof of these accusations was the " Monita Secreta," long since shown
to be a forgery. At any rate, the correspondence of the Illuminati provides their best exoneration. 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.
[6]
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,[7] 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.
Where, then, did Weishaupt find his immediate inspiration? It is here that Barruel and Lecouteulx de
Canteleu provide a clue not to be discovered in other sources. In 1771, they relate, a certain Jutland merchant
named Kölmer, who had spent many years in Egypt, returned to Europe in search of converts to a
secret doctrine founded on Manichæism that he had learnt in the East. On his way to France he stopped at
Malta, where he met Cagliostro and nearly brought about an insurrection amongst the people. Kölmer was
therefore driven out of the island by the Knights of Malta and betook himself to Avignon and Lyons. Here
he made a few disciples amongst the Illuminés and in the same year went on to Germany, where he encountered
Weishaupt and initiated him into all the mysteries of his secret doctrine. According to Barruel,
Weishaupt then spent five years thinking out his system, which he founded under the name of Illuminati on
May 1, 1776, and assumed the " illuminated " name of " Spartacus."
Kölmer remains the most mysterious of all the mystery men of his day; at first sight one is inclined to
wonder whether he may not have been another of the Cabalistic Jews acting as the secret inspirers of the magicians
who appeared in the limelight. The name Kölmer might easily have been a corruption of the wellknown
Jewish name Calmer. Lecouteulx de Canteleu, however, suggests that Kölmer was identical with
Altotas, described by Figuier as " this universal genius, almost divine, of whom Cagliostro has spoken to us
with so much respect and admiration. This Altotas was not an imaginary personage. The Inquisition of
Rome has collected many proofs of his existence without having been able to discover when it began or
ended, for Altotas disappears, or rather vanishes like a meteor, which, according to the poetic fancy of ro-
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
— 110 —