Origins of the Illuminati

The Illuminati is a secret society with specified aims. It aims at establishing a global dictatorship of its inner core after subverting all established governments and religions, with perhaps the exception of the Talmudic Judaism.

It was behind the bloodbaths known as the French and the Bolshevik Revolutions of 1789 and 1917. It was established on May 1, 1776, by a man named Adam Weishaupt. Weishaupt was the dean of the faculty of law at Ingolstadt University located in Bavaria.

His father was Jewish, but had, in order to secure a position in a university, become a Christian. Adam Weishaupt was sent to a Jesuit institution. The Jesuits themselves are a secretive Catholic order established in 1540. Weishaupt hated the Jesuits but took over their organizational and tactical strategy to put it to use for goals opposed to all religions and established governments.

Henry Makow Ph.D., a Canadian Jew, has stated in his 2014 book, Illuminati: The Cult That Hijacked the World, that in 1773 Mayer Amschel Rothschild held a meeting of 12 prominent Jewish bankers where a plan for world conquest was drawn up. He then adds: “In 1776 they appointed Adam Weishaupt to reorganize the Illuminati.” 

If the Illuminati is a secret society how is it that some things are known about it? The information came from defectors, from documents recovered from the body of a dead courier, and subsequently, from documents found in raids on residences of two members of the secret society.

By a most strange coincidence a messenger carrying the messages of Weishaupt to Silesia was struck by lightning in the year 1785. Documents were recovered from the body of the dead courier. These led the Bavarian authorities to search the residences of two important members of the Illuminati organization. 

On October 11th 1786 Bavarian police searched the home of Xavier von Zwack in the city of Landshut about 45 miles from Ingolstadt. The police uncovered about two hundred letters, lists of members, counterfeiting instructions as well as instructions on how to commit suicide (to escape being forced to reveal things about the organization), etc.

The police also found a method for filling a room with poisonous gas with the intent of killing people as well as apparatus for faking wax seals used by princes and noblemen as well as clergy. The documents recovered were published by the Bavarian government under the title Some Original Works of the Order of Illuminati. In the year 1787 the police searched the castle of Baron de Bassus. The documents recovered from the castle were published as Supplement of Further Original Works. 

Correspondence between Adam Weishaupt, who used the pseudonym Spartacus, and the “Aeropagites” (the term employed for his closest associates in the order) revealed plans for world-revolution. It involved a bloody subversion of all established governments and all religion.

This led the Bavarian authorities to impose a ban on the organization.  Even before 1785, Duke Karl Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, had issued an edict against the Illuminati on June 22, 1784. He issued the edict after his sister-in-law, Dowager Maria Anna, had been given documents by an Illuminati defector.

The edict stated: “Whereas all communities, societies and associations without proper approval from a public authority and the confirmation of the Monarch are illegal, prohibited by law, suspect and dangerous things in [and] of themselves. His Electoral Highness [the Duke] has decided not to tolerate them in his State, whatever their designation and interior constitutions, ordering categorically . . . one and all subjects to withdraw from any association or secret assembly of this kind …”

Three more edicts were issued by the Bavarian authorities, in 1785, 1787 and 1790 since the organization could not be rooted out. These edicts named the Illuminati explicitly. The second edict, issued on August 16th 1785, stated that the government was “displeased to learn that the various lodges of Freemasons and Illuminati, who are still in our state, have taken so little heed of our General Prohibition issued on June 22nd of last year against all fraternal societies clandestine and unapproved, as to not only to continue to hold meetings in secret, but to raise funds, and to recruit new members, seeking to further increase the already large number of adepts.”

The edict stressed that the government “could no longer tolerate” these clandestine organizations “in our State”. “We declare that all money and any funds collected illegally [by the lodges] shall be confiscated [and] half will be given to the poor and the other half will go to the denunciator [informant], even if he is a member of one of those societies, with a promise to keep his name confidential.”

After the castle of Baron de Bassus was searched and more documents recovered, a third edict was issued on August 16, 1787. This edict, for the first time, laid down death penalty as punishment for any Illuminati meeting or for recruiting adepts for the Illuminati organization. The Duke of Bavaria ordered: “Any so charged and found guilty are to be deprived of their lives by the sword while those thus recruited are to have their goods confiscated and themselves to be condemned to perpetual banishment from the territories of the Duke.” Gatherings were also forbidden by the edict under the same penalties. The edict directed that that the “prohibited Lodges of the Illuminati, under whatever name they may hide and carefully present themselves, in all places, must be subject to rigorous surveillance.”

Despite the three edicts and the proclamation of death penalty, the Illuminati organization could not be rooted out. This led to the issuance of a fourth edict three years and three months later, on November 15, 1790. The fourth edict referred to the earlier edicts and stated that the Elector had learned “partly by the spontaneous confession of some members, partly by sound intelligence” that “the Illuminati still hold, albeit in smaller numbers, secret meetings throughout the Electorate, but especially in Munich, and the surrounding area; they continue to attract young men to the cause and have maintained a correspondence with [secret] societies and with members in other countries.” The edict mentioned that the Illuminati continued to attack the State and religion verbally or through pamphlets. The edict warned: “Any member who has assisted in a secret meeting, has recruited new members or corresponded with [secret] societies or brothers in other countries, will be mercilessly punished to death.” Finally, the edict directed: “Any civil servant or [those in the] military, any holder of a beneficial office, a parish priest, etc. must swear that he has not and will never form a part of the sect or they ‘ll be convicted of perjury and shall be punished accordingly.”

Until the publication of the Illuminati documents by the Bavarian government in 1787 none of the Illuminati, save a very small number who were in immediate contact with him, knew that Weishaupt was the founder and leader of the movement. The members had, until then, been told that there was a leader, most-wise and all-knowing, who had chosen to remain hidden from view. A court deposition filed in 1785 by three former members of the organization stated that according to the Illuminati doctrines: “The Superiors of the Illuminati are to be looked upon as the most perfect and the most enlightened of men; no doubts are to be entertained about their infallibility.”  The movement was a secret order – it now went completely underground. Weishaupt was fired from his job in 1785 and fled Bavaria to escape arrest and punishment. He took refuge in the neighboring province of Thurinigia which was under the control of an Illuminati sympathizer Duke Ernest II. He worked as the legal adviser of the Duke and died there in 1830 at the age of 82.

Douglas Reed states in The Controversy of Zion: “The basic idea, made abundantly clear in the correspondence between ‘Spartacus’ and his pseudonymous fellow-conspirators, was to destroy all established authority, nationhood and religion, and thus to clear the way for the rise of a new ruling class, that of the Illuminates.”  The basic goals of the Order of Illuminati also included abolition of private property as well as the abolition of the family, marriage and morals. The Illuminati aimed at destroying all patriotic feelings and loyalty to a nation.  All these goals are common to Communism, which arose later, in 1848, as a result of the writing of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and which, undoubtedly, was also, in inspiration and intent, Illuminist. Reed also  points out that Weishaupt’s attack on kings and princes (“Princes and nations will disappear . . . Reason will be the only code of man”) was a cover for the attack on nationhood and his attack on “priests” was a cover for his attack on all religion.  

In the words of Douglas Reed: “Weishaupt’s papers included a diagram illustrating the way in which he exercised control over the organization. It shows what might be a section of a chain-mail, or of honeycomb and is identical with the celebrated ‘cell’ system on which Communism is built . . .  It is the product of an intelligence of the highest kind . . . The secret is that the damage to such a structure cannot be more than local, the main fabric remaining always unimpaired and capable of repair. If a few links, or cells, are destroyed these can be made good in due time, and meanwhile the organization continues substantially unharmed.” The Order brought together a “multitude of men of diverse beliefs, all working together for an object known only to a few of them”. Weishaupt wrote above the diagram: “One must show how easy it is for one clever head to direct hundreds and thousands of men. I have two immediately below me into whom I breathe my whole spirit, and each of these two has again two others, and so on. In this way I can set a thousand men in motion and on fire in the simplest manner, and in this way one must impart orders and operate in politics.” 

The method of recruitment and indoctrination focused on young men aged between 15 and 30 years of age. Weishaupt wrote: “A candidate for admission must make his wish known to some Minerval; he reports it to a Superior, who, by a channel to be explained presently, intimates it to the Council. No notice is farther taken of it for the time. The candidate is carefully observed in silence, and if thought unfit for the Order, no notice is taken of his solicitation. But if otherwise, the candidate receives privately an invitation to a conference. Here he meets a person unknown to him, and previous to all further conference, he is required to peruse and sign the following oath.”  

The oath has been stated in John Robison’s book. It reads: “I N.N. hereby bind myself, by mine honor and good name, forswearing all mental reservation, never to reveal, by hint, word, writing, or in any manner whatsoever, even to my most trusted friend, anything that shall now be said or done to me, respecting my wished-for-reception, and this whether my reception shall follow or not; I being previously assured that it shall contain nothing contrary to religion, the state, nor good manners. I promise that I shall make no intelligible extract from any papers which shall be shewn me know or during my noviciate. All this I swear, as I am, and as I hope to continue, a Man of Honor”.  The oath in itself is a deception because the avowed and real goal of the Illuminati Order was, among other things, the destruction of all religion, state and all good morals. 

Douglas Reed notes: “The young men who were recruited for the conspiracy were sworn in with much intimidating ceremonial including significant mockery of the Christian sacrament.” Thus the ceremonial violated the oath whereby the novice had been assured that the reception of the candidate shall involve “nothing contrary to religion”. Reed also notes: “they were required to supply a dossier about their parents, listing their ‘dominant passions’; and to spy on each other. . . The young Illuminate was made to feel that he would never know how many eyes of unknown superiors might be on him (he only knew immediate superiors); he was taught to inform on those around him and inferred that they informed on him. This is the basic principle of terror, which can never be completely established by killing, torture or imprisonment; only the knowledge that he can trust no man, not his own son or father or friend, reduces the human victim to utter submission.” 

Francois Charles de Berkheim was special commissioner of police in Paris. In 1810 he reported that in the Freemasonic lodges “Illuminism is becoming a great and formidable power . . . kings and peoples will have much to suffer from it unless foresight and prudence break its formidable power.” He wrote that Illuminism had in its ranks litterateurs, savants and professors who, through their writings and from their chairs “propagate the principles of the sect by disguising the poison that they circulate in a thousand different forms.” Parts of his writings appear as if they were written for today’s American, British and European institutions. “It is above all in universities that Illuminism has always found and will always find numerous recruits. Those professors who belong to the Association set out from the first to study the character of their pupils. If the student gives evidence of a vigorous mind, an ardent imagination, the sectaries at once get hold of him; they sound in his ears the words Despotism, Tyranny, Rights of the People, etc., etc. Before he can attach any meaning to these words, as he advances in age, reading works chosen for him, conversations skillfully arranged, develop the germ deposited in his youthful brain. Soon his imagination ferments . . . At last, when he has been completely captivated, when several years of testing guarantee to the society inviolable secrecy and absolute devotion, it is made known to him that millions of individuals distributed in all States of Europe share his sentiments and hopes . . .”

Weishaupt wrote: “The great strength of our Order lies in its concealment; let it never appear in any place in its own name, but always covered by another name, and   anther occupation.” Members never used their real names – they were assigned codenames and addressed one another by the assigned codenames.  For example Adam Weishaupt was given the codename Spartacus. The other four original members, noted by Mark Dice, were Andreas Sutor (codename Erasmus Rotero-damus), Bauhof or Baubof (codename  Agathon), Franz Anton von Massenhause (codename Ajax) and Max Elder von Merz (codename Tiberius).   Professor Robison has given a list of members with, in many cases, their codenames. For example Baron de Bassus had the codename Hannibal, Count Savioli had the codename Brutus, and Nicolai the bookseller, a very active member, had the codename Lucian. 

Based on the 1776 documents of Count Mirabeau (comte de Mirabeau), Douglas Reed concludes that he must have been one of the founding members. Mirabeau was a very important leader of the French Revolution but died in 1791 due to pericarditis.  Reed writes: “That Mirabeau was party to the whole undertaking [capture of Freemasonry] from the start is suggested by the fact that the memoir of 1776 (the year in which the Illuminati were founded) ascribes to him the ‘cover-name’ of Arcesilas, so that he must have been a founder member, with Adam Weishaupt, and a leading Illuminate thereafter.” Reed notes: “Mirabeau, as the link between Weishaupt and the French Revolution, cannot be ignored. The editor of his Memoirs, M. Barthou, remarks that the ‘plan of reform’ of 1776, found among Mirabeau’s papers , ‘resembles very much in certain parts the work accomplished later by the Constituent Assembly’ (the revolutionary parliament of 1789). That is other way of saying that the work of the Constituent Assembly  very much resembled Adam Weishaupt’s plan of1776, when he and Mirabeau  together  were founding the Illuminati and planning together to gain control of freemasonry.”

Weishaupt had realized very early that if his organization could take over Masonic lodges by penetrating Freemasonry, then they would have a cover as well as physical infrastructure. Therefore, in the year 1777, a year after founding the Illuminati, he became a Freemason!  He noted: “I have succeeded in obtaining a profound glimpse into the secrets of the Freemasons; I know their whole aim and shall impart it all at the right time in one of the higher degrees.” He directed his “Aeropagites” to enter Freemasonry: “Then we shall have a masonic lodge of our own . . .” He also added that “we shall cover ourselves with this [Freemasonry]”. Douglas Reed has quoted Weishaupt: “If only the aim is achieved, it does not matter under what cover it takes place; and a cover is always necessary. For in concealment lies a great part of our strength. For this reason we must always cover ourselves with the name of another society. The lodges that are under Freemasonry are in the meantime the most suitable cloak for our high purpose . . .  a society concealed in this manner cannot be worked against  . . . In case of a prosecution or of treason the superiors cannot be discovered . . . We shall be shrouded in impenetrable darkness from spies and emissaries of other societies.”

In the year 1782 a highly important general congress of secret societies, including the Freemasons and Illuminati, took place at Wilhelmsbad castle owned by the Rothschild family.  Douglas Reed notes that at this congress the Illuminati gained so many recruits that “the Order of Strict Observance, previously the most powerful body in Freemasonry, ceased to exist.” The Illuminati were able to recruit Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick (who later regretted joining the Illuminati and revolted) and Prince Carl of Hesse in their ranks. The detailed planning of the French Revolution began most probably in 1785 and was assigned to the Lodge of Amis Reunis, which was “cover” for the Illuminati. Those present at Wilehelmsbad were sworn to secrecy. Herbert Dorsey writes that when Comte de Virieu, who was also present at the Wilhelmsbad Congress, was asked about its proceedings, he replied; “I will not confide them to you. I can only tell you that all this is much more serious than you think. The conspiracy which has been woven is so well thought out that it will be, so to speak, impossible for the monarchy and the church to escape from it.”

The capture of Freemasonry by the Illuminati transformed Freemasonry into a subversive order, which, until that time, it probably was not. Douglas Reed has quoted the Duke of Brunswick at length in this regard – he was the Grand   Master of German Freemasonry and had been an illuminate. In the year 1794 he dissolved the entire (Freemasonic) Order under his command with the following words “We see our whole edifice [Freemasonry] crumbling and covering the ground with ruins; we see destruction that our ands can no longer arrest . . . A great sect arose, which taking for its motto the good and happiness of man, worked in the darkness of conspiracy to make the happiness of humanity a prey for itself.” Referring to the destructive Illuminati role, the Duke observed: “It is they who have undermined the foundations of the Order to the point of complete overthrow; it is by them that all humanity has been poisoned and led astray for several generations.” 

The Duke of Brunswick pointed out: “They began by casting odium on religion . . . the plan they had formed for breaking all social ties and destroying all order was revealed in all their speeches and acts . . . they recruited apprentices of every rank and in every position; they deluded the most perspicacious men by falsely alleging different intentions . . . Their masters had nothing less than the thrones of the earth, and the government of nations had to be directed by their nocturnal clubs. This is what has been done and is still being done. But we notice that the princes and the people are unaware how and by what means this is being accomplished. That is why we say to them in all frankness: the misuse of the Order . . . has produced all the political and moral troubles with which the world is filled today. You who have been initiated, you must join yourselves and us in raising your voices, so as to teach people and princes that the sectarians, the apostate of your Order, have alone been and will be the authors of present and future revolutions  . . . So as to cut out to the roots the abuse and error, we must from this moment dissolve the whole Order . . . “

When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, Marquis de Luchet gave an analysis of the Illuminati in profoundly prophetic words: “Learn there exists a conspiracy in favor of despotism against liberty, of incapacity against talent, of vice against virtue, of ignorance against enlightenment . . . This society aims at governing the world . . . Its objet is universal domination . . . No such calamity has ever yet afflicted the world . . .” Marquis de Luchet warned that if his voice was unheeded there would be “a series of calamities of which the end is lost in darkness of time . . . a subterranean fire smoldering eternally and breaking forth periodically in violent and devastating explosions.” This is what was to happen in the “revolutions” of 1848, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the World Wars and so on. The event known as 9/11 and the subsequent eruption of American militarism is another example of “violent and devastating explosions” literally and metaphorically. 

The control of the press by the Illuminati enabled them to attack anyone who either broke ranks with them or exposed them. John Robison, a professor and a Scottish Freemason had the opportunity of spending time in France, Germany, Italy and Russia, and interacting with the Masonic lodges in those countries. He was able to observe various activities and came across doctrines that he did not approve of in his heart. In his 1798 book exposing the Illuminati he wrote “An Association has been formed for the express purpose of rooting out all the religious establishments, and overturning all the existing governments of Europe. . . I have seen this Association exerting itself zealously and systematically, till it has become almost irresistible. And I have seen that the most active leaders in the French Revolution were members of this Association and conducted their first movements according to its principles, and by means of instructions and assistance formerly requested and obtained.” 

A similar verdict was given by Abbe Barruel, a Jesuit, and an eyewitness of the French Revolution.   He stated that: “At the early period of the French Revolution, there appeared a sect, calling itself Jacobin, and teaching that all men were equal and free! In the name of their equality and disorganizing liberty, they trampled under foot the altar and the throne; they stimulated all the nations to rebellion, and aimed at plunging them ultimately into the horrors of anarchy.” Abbe Barruel also pointed out that at first appearance this sect “counted 300,000 adepts; and it was supported by two millions of men, scattered throughout France, armed with torches and pikes, and all the fire-brands of revolution.”  He further wrote (emphasis added): “It was under the influence of this sect, by their intrigues, their influence, and their impulse, that France beheld itself a prey to ever crime; that its soil was stained with the blood of its pontiffs and priests, of its rich men and nobles; with the blood of every class of its citizens, without regard to rank, age or sex.”

Abbe Barruel pointed out that the people were deceived by slogans into accepting unprecedented bloodshed. They were misled by statements and deceptive arguments such that the intentions of those launched the French Revolution were pure and that “if great misfortunes have since happened, they arose from obstacles thrown in their way; that a great people cannot be regenerated without commotion, but that the tempest shall subside and a calm succeed the swelling billow. Then nations, astonished at the fear they had conceived of the French Revolution, and true only to its principles will be happy in its imitation.” Barruel analyzed: “It was this that gained them their first instruments of rebellion; . . . it was this that gained them prodigious numbers of votaries more blind than wicked, and who might have mistaken for honest, if virtue could have combined with ferocity in search of happier days. It was this that gained them those men whose well-meant though stupid credulity misled them to believe in the necessity of carnage of the 10th of August, and of the horrid butcheries of the 2nd of September; in a word, all those men who, in the murders of 3 or 400,000 fellow creatures, in the extermination of millions of victims by famine, the sword, or the guillotine, seek consolation, in spite of this depopulating scourge, in the empty hope that this dreadful chain of horrors may be productive of happier days.”

Abbe Barruel wrote: “We shall demonstrate that, even to the most horrid deeds perpetrated during the French Revolution, everything was foreseen and resolved on, combined and premeditated; that they were the offspring of deep thought villainy, since they had been prepared and were produced by men, who alone held the clue of these plots and conspiracies, lurking in the secret meetings where they had been conceived, and only watching for the favorable moment to burst forth. Though the events of each day may not appear to have been combined, there nevertheless existed a secret agent and a secret cause, giving rise to each event and turning each circumstance to the long sought-for-end. Though the circumstances may often have afforded the pretense or the occasion, yet the grand cause of the revolution, its leading features, its atrocious crimes, will still remain one continued chain of deeplaid and premeditated villainy.”   

The real managers of the French revolution remained hidden from public and historical view. Douglas Reed has quoted a writer of the times of the French revolution named Lombard de Langres.  He wrote of a “most secret convention which directed everything after May 31, an occult and terrible power of which the other Convention became a slave and which was composed of the prime initiates of Illuminism. This power was above Robespierre and the committees of the government . . .  it was this occult power which appropriated to itself the treasures of the nation and distributed them to the brothers and friends who had helped in the great work.” Douglas Reed adds his own profound comments: “It is this picture of men in high places doing the will of some hidden, but palpably directing , supreme sect that gives the revolution the aspect of a demonic puppet-show, played against the flickering red flames amid the odor of brimstone. The revolution, not the French one, whatever the true nature of the English one, since 1789 there has only been one continuous revolution. These have not been episodic, disconnected outbreaks in 1848 and 1905 and so on, but those recurrent eruptions of ‘a subterranean fire smoldering eternally’ which de Luchet and Burke saw before the event.” 

In 250 years since it was founded the Illuminati have been behind every major bloodshed, including the two world wars, 911 and the subsequently genocidal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, the creation of Israel and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.