booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

ressorts]."
Two years later, on January 16, 1813, Berckheim writes again to the Minister of Police:
Monseigneur, they write to me from Heidelberg... that a great number of initiates into the mysteries of Illuminism
are to be found there.
These gentlemen wear as a sign of recognition a gold ring on the third finger of the left hand; on the
back of this ring there is a little rose, in the middle of this rose is an almost imperceptible dint; by pressing
this with the point of a pin one touches a spring, by this means the two gold circles are detached. On the inside
of the first of these circles is the device: " Be German as you ought to be "; on the inside of the second
of these circles are engraved the words " Pro Patria."
Subversive as the ideas of the Illuminati might be, they were therefore not subversive of German patriotism.
We shall find this apparent paradox running all through the Illuminist movement to the present day.
In 1814 Berckheim drew up his great report on the secret societies of Germany, which is of so much importance
in throwing a light on the workings of the modern revolutionary movement, that extracts must be
given here at length.[46] His testimony gains greater weight from the vagueness he displays on the origins
of Illuminism and the role it had played before the French Revolution; it is evident, therefore, that he had
not taken his ideas from Robison or Barruel-to whom he never once refers-but from information gleaned on
the spot in Germany. The opening paragraphs finally refute the fallacy concerning the extinction of the sect
in 1786.
The oldest and most dangerous association is that which is generally known under the denomination of
the Illumines and of which the foundation goes back towards the middle of the last century.
Bavaria was its cradle; it is said that it had for founders several chiefs of the Order of the Jesuits; but
this opinion, advanced perhaps at random, is founded only on uncertain premises; in any case, in a short
time it made rapid progress, and the Bavarian Government recognized the necessity of employing methods
of repression against it and even of driving away several of the principal sectaries.
But it could not eradicate the germ of the evil. The Illuminés who remained in Bavaria, obliged to wrap
themselves in darkness so as to escape the eye of authority, became only the more formidable: the rigorous
measures of which they were the object, adorned by the title of persecution, gained them new proselytes,
whilst the banished members went to carry the principles of the Association into other States.
Thus in a few years Illuminism multiplied its hotbeds all through the south of Germany, and as a consequence
in Saxony, in Prussia, in Sweden, and even in Russia.
The reveries of the Pietists have long been confounded with those of the Illuminés. This error may arise
from the denomination of the sect, which at first suggests the idea of a purely religious fanaticism and of
mystic forms which it was obliged to take at its birth in order to conceal its principles and projects; but the
Association always had a political tendency. If it still retains some mystic traits, it is in order to support itself
at need by the power of religious fanaticism, and we shall see in what follows how well it knows to turn
this to account.
The doctrine of Illuminism is subversive of every kind of monarchy; unlimited liberty, absolute levelling
down, such is the fundamental dogma of the sect; to break the ties that bind the Sovereign to the citizen
of a state, that is the object of all its efforts.
No doubt some of the principal chiefs, amongst whom are numbered men distinguished for their fortune,
their birth, and the dignities with which they are invested, are not the dupes of these demagogic dreams:
they hope to find in the popular emotions they stir up the means of seizing the reigns of power, or at any rate
of increasing their wealth and their credit; but the crowd of adepts believe in it religiously, and, in order to
reach the goal shown to them, they maintain incessantly a hostile attitude towards sovereigns.
Thus the Illuminés hailed with enthusiasm the ideas that prevailed in France from 1789 to 1804. Perhaps
they were not foreign to the intrigues which prepared the explosions of 1789 and the following years;
but if they did not take an active part in these manouvres, it is at least beyond doubt that they openly applauded
the systems which resulted from them; that the Republican armies when they penetrated into Germany
found in these sectarians auxiliaries the more dangerous for the sovereigns of the invaded states in that
they inspired no distrust, and we can say with assurance that more than one general of the Republic owed a
part of its success to his understanding with the Illuminés.
It would be a mistake if one confounded Illuminism with Freemasonry. These two associations, in spite
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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