booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

designate these Jews as Moses Mendelssohn, Wessely, and the bankers Itzig, Friedlander, and Meyer. But
no documentary evidence has ever been produced in support of these statements. It is therefore necessary to
examine them in the light of probability.
Now, as I have already shown, the theosophical ideas of the Cabala play no part in the system of Illuminism;
the only trace of Cabalism to be found amongst the papers of the Order is a list of recipes for procuring
abortion, for making aphrodisiacs, Aqua Toffana, pestilential vapours, etc., headed " Cabala Major."[101] It
is possible, then, that the Illuminati may have learnt something of " venefic magic " and the use of certain
natural substances from Jewish Cabalists; at the same time Jews appear to have been only in rare cases admitted
to the Order. Everything indeed tends to prove that Weishaupt and his first coadjutors, Zwack and
Massenhausen, were pure Germans. Nevertheless there is between the ideas of Weishaupt and of Lessing's
" Falk " a distinct resemblance; both in the writings of the Illuminati and in Lessing's Dialogues we find the
same vein of irony with regard to Freemasonry, the same design that it should be replaced by a more effectual
system,[102] the same denunciations of the existing social order and of bourgeois society, the same theory
that " men should be self-governing," the same plan of obliterating all distinctions between nations, even the
same simile of the bee-hive as applied to human life[103] which, as I have shown elsewhere, was later on
adopted by the anarchist Proudhon. It may, however, legitimately be urged that these ideas were those of
the inner masonic circle to which both Lessing and Weishaupt belonged, and that, though placed in the
mouth of Falk, they were in no sense Judaic.
But Lessing was also the friend and admirer of Moses Mendelssohn, who has been suggested as one of
Weishaupt's inspirers. Now, at first sight nothing seems more improbable than that an orthodox Jew such as
Mendelssohn should have accorded any sympathy to the anarchic scheme of Weishaupt. Nevertheless, certain
of Weishaupt's doctrines are not incompatible with the principles of orthodox Judaism. Thus, for example,
Weishaupt's theory-so strangely at variance with his denunciations of the family system-that as a result
of Illuminism " the head of every family will be what Abraham was, the patriarch, the priest, and the unfettered
lord of his family, and Reason will be the only code of Man,"[104] is essentially a Jewish conception.
It will be objected that the patriarchal system as conceived by orthodox Jews could by no means include
the religion of Reason as advocated by Weishaupt. It must not, however, be forgotten that to the Jewish
mind the human race presents a dual aspect, being divided into two distinct categories-the privileged race to
whom the promises of God were made, and the great mass of humanity which remains outside the pale.
Whilst strict adherence to the commands of the Talmud and the laws of Moses is expected of the former, the
most indefinite of religious creeds suffices for the nations excluded from the privileges that Jewish birth
confers. It was thus that Moses Mendelssohn wrote to the pastor Lavater, who had sought to win him over
to Christianity: Pursuant to the principles of my religion, I am not to seek to convert anyone who is not born
according to our laws. This proneness to conversion, the origin of which some would fain tack on to the
Jewish religion, is, nevertheless, diametrically opposed to it. Our rabbis unanimously teach that the written
and oral laws which form conjointly our revealed religion are obligatory on our nation only. "Moses commanded
us a law, even the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob." We believe that all other nations of
the earth have been directed by God to adhere to the laws of nature, and to the religion of the patriarchs.
Those who regulate their lives according to the precepts of this religion of nature and of reason[105] are
called virtuous men of other nations and are the children of eternal salvation.[106] Our rabbis are so remote
from Proselytomania, that they enjoin us to dissuade, by forcible remonstrances, everyone who comes forward
to be converted. (The Talmud says... " proselytes are annoying to Israel like a scab.")[107]
But was not this " religion of nature and of reason " the precise conception of Weishaupt?
Whether, then, Weishaupt was directly inspired by Mendelssohn or any other Jew must remain for the
present an open question. But the Jewish connexions of certain other Illuminati cannot be disputed. The
most important of these was Mirabeau, who arrived in Berlin just after the death of Mendelssohn and was
welcomed by his disciples in the Jewish salon of Henrietta Herz. It was these Jews, " ardent supporters of
the French Revolution "[108] at its outset, who prevailed on Mirabeau to write his great apology for their
race under the form of a panegyric of Mendelssohn.
To sum up, I do not so far see in Illuminism a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Christianity, but rather a
movement finding its principal dynamic force in the ancient spirit of revolt against the existing social and
moral order, aided and abetted perhaps by Jews who saw in it a system that might be turned to their own advantage.
Meanwhile, Illuminism made use of every other movement that could serve its purpose. As the
contemporary de Luchet has expressed it: The system of the Illuminés is not to embrace the dogmas of a
sect, but to turn all errors to its advantage, to concentrate in itself everything that men have invented in the
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
— 122 —