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way of duplicity and imposture.More than this, Illuminism was not only the assemblage of all errors, of all ruses, of all subtleties of atheoretic kind, it was also an assemblage of all practical methods for rousing men to action. For in thewords of von Hammer on the Assassins, that cannot be too often repeated: Opinions are powerless so longas they only confuse the brain without arming the hand. Scepticism and free-thinking as long as they occupiedonly the minds of the indolent and philosophical have caused the ruin of no throne.... It is nothing to theambitious man what people believe, but it is everything to know how he may turn them for the execution ofhis projects.This was what Weishaupt so admirably understood; he knew how to take from every association, pastand present, the portions he required and to weld them all into a working system of terrible efficiency-thedisintegrating doctrines of the Gnostics and Manichæns, of the modern philosophers and Encyclopædists,the methods of the Ismailis and the Assassins, the discipline of the Jesuits and Templars, the organizationand secrecy of the Freemasons, the philosophy of Machiavelli, the mystery of the Rosicrucians-he knewmoreover, how to enlist the right elements in all existing associations as well as isolated individuals and turnthem to his purpose. So in the army of the Illuminati we find men of every shade of thought, from the poetGoethe[109] to the meanest intriguer-lofty idealists, social reformers, visionaries, and at the same time theambitious, the rancorous, and the disgruntled, men swayed by lust or embittered by grievances, all these differingin their aims yet by Weishaupt's admirable system of watertight compartments precluded from aknowledge of these differences and all marching, unconsciously or not, towards the same goal.Although this was not the invention of Weishaupt but had been foreshadowed many centuries earlier inthe East, it was Weishaupt, so far as we know, who reduced it to a working system for the West-a systemwhich has been adhered to by succeeding groups of world-revolutionaries up to the present day. It is for thisreason that I have quoted at length the writings of the Illuminati-all the ruses, all the hypocrisy, all the subtlemethods of camouflage which characterized the Order will be found again in the insidious propaganda bothof the modern secret societies and the open revolutionary organizations whose object is to subvert all order,all morality, and all religion.I maintain, therefore, with greater conviction than ever the importance of Illuminism in the history ofworld-revolution. But for this co-ordination of methods the philosophers and Encyclopædists might havegone on for ever inveighing against thrones and altars, the Martinistes evoking spirits, the magicians weavingspells, the Freemasons declaiming on universal brotherhood-none of these would have " armed the hand" and driven the infuriated mobs into the streets of Paris; it was not until the emissaries of Weishauptformed an alliance with the Orléaniste leaders that vague subversive theory became active revolution.Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I— 123 —
1. Barruel, III. p. xi. quoting Gaultiert.2. Silvestre de Sacy, " Mémoires sur la Dynastie des Assassins," in Mémoires de l'Institut Royal de France,Vol IV. (1818).3. History of Freemasonry, III. 121.4. Mémoires sur le Jacobinisme (edition of 1819). Vol. III. p. 9.5. Ibid., III. 55, 56.6. Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés, pp. 28-39.7. " Our worst enemies the Jesuits."-Letter from Spartacus, Originalschriften, p. 306.8. Fuguier, Histoire de Merveilleux, IV. 77.9. Originalschriften des Illuminatenordens, p. 230.10. Ibid., p. 331.11. In World Revolution I suggested a resemblance between the Jewish calendar and that of the Illuminati.This was an error; the Jewish calendar was adopted by the Scottish Rite, which, as we have seen, derivedpartly from Judaic sources.12. Thus Zwack (alias Cato) writes: " We have not only hindered the enlistings of the Rose-Croix butrendered their very name contemptible."-Originalschriften, p. 8.13. Originalschriften, p. 303. The word Illuminism is always represented by this symbol in the correspondenceof the Illuminati.14. Ibid., p. 202.15. Ibid., p. 331.16. Waite, „ Freemasonry and the Jewish Peril," The Occult Review September 1920, p. 152.17. Mémoires de Mirabeau écrits par lui-même , par son père, son oncle et son fils adoptif, et précédésd'une étude sur Mirabeau par Victor Hugo, Vol. III. p. 47 (1834).18. I have expressly made use of M. Barthou's résumé instead of making use of my own, lest I should besaid to have made judicious selections in order to suit the purpose of showing the resemblance between thisMemoir and the passage from Mirabeau's other writings which follows. But M. Barthou's impartiality cannotbe impugned, for he appears to know nothing about the Illuminati or Mirabeau's connexion with them,and regards the Memoir in question as solely the outcome of Mirabeau's mind which had " ripened " since1772.19. F. Barthou, Mirabeau. p. 57.20. In the Memoir drawn up by Mirabeau quoted above we find this passage : " It must be a fundamentalrule never to allow any prince to enter the association were he a god for virtue."-Mémoires de Mirabeau, III60.21. Histoire de la Monarchie Prussienne, V. 99.22. Henri Martin, Histoire de France, XVI. 533.23. Louis Blanc, Histoire de la Révolution Française, II. 84.24. History of Freemasonry, III. 121.25. Originalschriften, p. 258.26. Ibid., p. 297.27. Ibid., p. 285.28. Ibid., p. 286.29. Originalschriften, p. 300. It seems that when a Freemason appeared likely to fall in with the scheme ofIlluminism, he was soon allowed to know of the further system. Thus in the case of " Savioli " " Cato "writes: " Now that he is a Mason I have put all about this before him, shown him what is unimportant and atthis opportunity taken up the general plan of our , and as this pleased him I said that such a thing really ex-Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I— 124 —
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Nesta H. WebsterSecret Societies an
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That the author was right in his de
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1. Moniteur for the 14th Fructidor,
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and that " the priests did not shut
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Is the Cabala, then, as Gougenot de
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system of the Jewish hierarchy and
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traditions woven into a coherent na
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This passage would alone suffice to
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itive innocence of the garden of Ed
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1. August le Plongeon, Sacred myste
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ah was not that of ' a light to lig
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110. Matter, op. cit., II. 364.111.
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By means such as these the extraord
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policy. A system which, with no oth
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devoted his life to murder. Thus by
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CHAPTER IIITHE TEMPLARSIN the year
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nesses, says the official report, "
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As to the Pope, we have already see
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The Paulicians who flourished about
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regard to the miracles of Christ is
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ing homage to the powers of darknes
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27. Ibid., p. 384.28. F. Funck-Bren
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CHAPTER IVTHREE CENTURIES OF OCCULT
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from this source. Indeed Eliphas L
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ment of physics by which the mystic
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It will be seen that, according to
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Moreover, towards the end of the ce
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existence to the world under the na
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the true and indisputable facts con
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legia in Scotland, at Kilwinning, M
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Apprentices, Fellow Crafts, and Mas
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Moreover, according to a masonic tr
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sider one more link in the chain of
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but more likely borrowed from the R
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1. A Free Mason's answer to the Sus
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Les Sociétés Secrètes en Allemag
Page 74 and 75: ment, but in the transformation tha
Page 76 and 77: middle of the eighteenth century sp
Page 78 and 79: Freemasonry traced to the Crusades:
Page 80 and 81: Cross; and finally, that a degree o
Page 82 and 83: claimed to be not merely a part of
Page 84 and 85: 1. Histoire de la Monarchie Prussie
Page 86 and 87: 41. A.Q.C., XXXII. Part I. p. 17.42
Page 88 and 89: Convallium, von Haugwitz (Cabinet M
Page 90 and 91: thentic they were the work of Volta
Page 92 and 93: speech had reached the ears of Fred
Page 94 and 95: 1782 an English Freemason writes: "
Page 96 and 97: Contemporaries, however, take him l
Page 98 and 99: 25. Evidently a reference to the se
Page 100 and 101: CHAPTER IIXTHE JEWISH CABALISTSIT h
Page 102 and 103: Podolia, known as Ba'al Shem Tob, o
Page 104 and 105: applied to Falk in his quest for th
Page 106 and 107: und Falk: Gespräche für Freimaure
Page 108 and 109: 1. L'Antisémitisme, p. 335.2. Ibid
Page 110 and 111: CHAPTER IXTHE BAVARIAN ILLUMINATITH
Page 112 and 113: mancers, would authorize us in decl
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Page 116 and 117: day.Weishaupt, however, admits hims
Page 118 and 119: and the world the abode of reasonab
Page 120 and 121: ing esteemed and " respectable " pe
Page 122 and 123: mother dead ! Corpse, wedding, chri
Page 126 and 127: isted, whereat he gave me his word
Page 128 and 129: 100. It has several times been stat
Page 130 and 131: But in the year before these events
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Page 144 and 145: ectory of the Carbonari and was led
Page 146 and 147: 1. Henri Martin, Histoire de France
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