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Adam Weishaupt founded the Illuminati of Bavaria on May 1, 1776 on the principles of his early training as a Jesuit. Originally called the Order of the Perfectibilists, "its professed object was, by the mutual assistance of its members, to attain the highest possible degree of morality and virtue, and to lay the foundation for the reformation of the world by the association of good men to oppose the progress of moral evil."1
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FRENCH REVOLUTION
EUROPEAN ILLUMINATI
MYTHOLOGY OF SECRET SOCIETIES
NEW ENGLAND SCARE
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A Bavarian Illuminati primer
Compiled by Trevor W. McKeown
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"As Weishaupt lived under the tyranny of a despot and priests, he knew that caution was necessary even in spreading information, and the principles of pure morality. This has given an air of mystery to his views, was the foundation of his banishment.... If Weishaupt had written here, where no secrecy is necessary in our endeavors to render men wise and virtuous, he would not have thought of any secret machinery for that purpose."
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- Thomas Jefferson Letters, 1800
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The two principal critics of the Illuminati, John Robison and the Abbé Barruel 2 both published their accusations, theories and "histories" in English. But it has only been in the last few years that the source documents have been translated, allowing the English-speaking world an objective perspective on the order.
This webpage summarizes what was known about the Bavarian Illuminati to the English-speaking world, up until the mid-twentieth century. Serious students should consult Amelia Gill's 2008 translation of Weishaupt's Die Lampe von Diogenese, Peggy Pawlowski’s 2004 doctoral thesis, ‘Der Beitrag Johann Adam Weishaupts zur Pädagogik des Illuminatismus’, and the works of such German historians as Reinhart Koselleck, Richard van Dülmen, Hermann Schüttler, Reinhard Markner, Monika Neugebauer-Wölk, Manfred Agethen, and Christine Schaubs.
Robison freely admitted that he had scanty knowledge of German and had derived all his information from other writers. 3 Unfortunately neither he nor Barruel were concerned with providing references for their sources. When they do quote from the papers and correspondence of the Order as published by the Bavarian government or the published works of Adam Weishaupt and Adolph Knigge, they also fail to provide context or citations.
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Adam Weishaupt (1748 - 1830)
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Adam Weishaupt was born February 6, 1748 at Ingolstadt and educated by the Jesuits. His appointment as Professor of Natural and Canon Law at the University of Ingolstadt in 1775, a position previously held by one of the recently disbanded Jesuits,4 gave, it is said, great offence to the clergy. "Weishaupt, whose views were cosmopolitan, and who knew and condemned the bigotry and superstitions of the Priests, established an opposing party in the University...." 5
Weishaupt was not then a freemason; he was initiated into a Lodge of Strict Observance, Lodge Theodore of Good Council (Theodor zum guten Rath), at Munich in 1777.*
Most information regarding the rituals and objectives of the order is derived from papers and correspondence found in a search of Xavier Zwack’s residence in Landshut on 11 October 1786, and a search of Baron Bassus’s castle of Sondersdorf in Bavaria on 16 October of the same year. 6 These documents were published by the Bavarian government, under the title: Einige Originalschriften des Illuminaten Ordens, (Munich, 1787). Until recently, the best English exposition on the Order was found in Chapter III of Vernon L. Stauffer’s New England and the Bavarian Illuminati, (pp. 142-228). Today, English translations of the rituals are available online.
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Retellings of the death of Lanz, an Illuminati courier, who was struck by lightning in Regensburg illustrate the mythology that has grown up around the history of the Illuminati. Conspiracy theorists have confused Johann Jakob Lanz, a priest in Erding, and friend of Weishaupt, with Franz Georg Lang, a court advisor in Eichstätt who was active in the Illuminati under the name Tamerlan, and sometimes been imaginative in the details of the story.
Eckert renamed Weishaupt’s friend as Lanze and had him struck by lightning while carrying dispatches in Silesia, rather than about Silesia. Rene Le Forestier calls him Lang instead of Lanz. Miller, citing Eckert, also renamed Lanz as Jacob Lang but correctly placed the lightning strike in Ratisbon (Regensburg). The importance of the papers found on Lanz has also been over-stressed, considering that his death on 20 July 1785 came some time after the first two edicts for suppression — issued on 22 June 1784 and 2 March 1785 — and some time before the mid-October 1786 raids on Zwack and Bassus, and the final edict on 16 August 1787.
Barruel mistakenly translated "Weltpriester", or secular priest, as apostate priest and subsequent writers such as Webster and Miller have repeated this error. These are minor details in the history but it illustrates the lack of accuracy often displayed by detractors of the Illuminati.7
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Neither Robison nor Barruel deny that the professed goal of the Order was to teach people to be happy by making them good — to do this by enlightening the mind and freeing it from the dominion of superstition and prejudice. But they refused to accept this at face value. Where Weishaupt and Knigge promoted a freedom from church domination over philosophy and science, Robison and Barruel saw a call for the destruction of the church. Where Weishaupt and Knigge wanted a release from the excesses of state oppression, Robison and Barruel saw the destruction of the state. Where Weishaupt and Knigge wanted to educate women and treat them as intellectual equals, Robison and Barruel saw the destruction of the natural and proper order of society.
The rituals were of a rationalistic and not occult nature. Status as a freemason was not required for initiation into the Order of Illuminati since the fourth, fifth and sixth degrees of Weishaupt and Baron Adolphe-François-Frederic Knigge’s system practically duplicated the three degrees of symbolic Freemasonry. Although Knigge claimed to have a system of ten degrees, the last two appear never to have been fully worked up.8
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Baron Adolph Knigge (1752 - 1796)
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"The Order was at first very popular, and enrolled no less than two thousand names upon its registers.... Its Lodges were to be found in France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, and Italy. Knigge, who was one of its most prominent working members, and the auther of several of its Degrees, was a religious man, and would never have united with it had its object been, as has been charged, to abolish Christianity. But it cannot be denied, that in the process of time abuses had crept into the Institution and that by the influence of unworthy men, the system became corrupted; yet the course accusations of Barruel and Robison are known to be exaggerated, and some of them altogether false.... The Edicts [on June 22, 1784, for its suppression] of the Elector of Bavaria [Duke Karl Theodor] were repeated in [2 March 1785, 16 August 1787] and the Order began to decline, so that by the end of the eighteenth century it had ceased to exist.... it exercised while in prosperity no favorable influence on the masonic institution, nor any unfavorable effect on it by its dissolution."9
In 1785 Weishaupt was deprived of his chair and banished with pension from the country. He refused the pension and moved to Regensburg, subsequently finding asylum with Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Weishaupt was later appointed a professor at the University of Gottingen, remaining there until his death on 18 November 1830.10
Henry Wilson Coil describes the order as a "short lived, meteoric and controversial society"11 while George Kenning refers to it as a "mischievous association".12 In his own defense, Weishaupt wrote:
"Whoever does not close his ear to the lamentations of the miserable, nor his heart to gentle pity; whoever is the friend and brother of the unfortunate; whoever has a heart capable of love and friendship; whoever is steadfast in adversity, unwearied in the carrying out of whatever has been once engaged in, undaunted in the overcoming of difficulties; whoever does not mock and despise the weak; whose soul is susceptible of conceiving great designs, desirous of rising superior to all base motives, and of distinguishing himself by deeds of benevolence; whoever shuns idleness; whoever considers no knowledge as unessential which he may have the opportunity of acquiring, regarding the knowledge of mankind as his chief study; whoever, when truth and virtue are in question, despising the approbation of the multitude, is sufficiently courageous to follow the dictates of his own heart, - such a one is a proper candidate." 13
"The tenor of my life has been the opposite of everything that is vile; and no man can lay any such thing to my charge." 14
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As regards any information derived from the celebrated anti-mason, John Robison 15: "In the (London) Monthly Magazine for January 1798 there appeared a letter from Böttiger, Provost of the College of Weimar, in reply to Robison’s work, charging that writer with making false statements, and declaring that since 1790 'every concern [sic] of the Illuminati has ceased.' Böttiger also offered to supply any person in Great Britain, alarmed at the erroneous statements contained in the book above mentioned, with correct information." 16
Following is an unconfirmed list of the more notable members:
Of the 67 names published by the Abbé Barruel, 10 were professors, 13 were nobles, 7 were in the church, 3 were lawyers and the balance were drawn from the growing middle class: mostly government officials and merchants and a few military officers.17
John M. Roberts claims that "[Weishaupt] rapidly rationalized difficulties growing out of his own rashness and taste for intrigue as the product of obscurantism and soon envisaged wider purposes for his society"18 while Robert Gilbert feels that Christopher McIntosh "overestimates the strength and significance of the Illuminati."19
Researchers are directed to a list of books and pamphlets written by Weishaupt found at the end of this paper. A further bibliography can be found in Vernon L. Stauffer’s New England and the Bavarian Illuminati, pp. 185-86. The United Grand Lodge of England Library catalogue includes: P.4. Adam Weishaupt, Uber den allgorischen Geist des Alterthums. Regensburg, 1794. 8vo.
Evidence would suggest that the Bavarian Illuminati was nothing more than a curious historical footnote. Certainly, this is the opinion of masonic writers. Conspiracy theorists though, are not noted for applying Occam’s razor and have decided that there are connections between the Illuminati, Freemasonry, the Trilateral Commission, British Emperialism, International Zionism and communism (if you read the writings of Alberto Rivera and Jack T. Chick of Chino California), that all lead back to the Vatican (or if David Icke is to be believed, the British house of Windsor and extra-terrestrial lizard people) in a bid for world domination. Believe what you will but there is no evidence that any Illuminati survived its founders.
It should be noted that the compiler of these notes, and of the Anti-masonry FAQ, is neither the founder nor the moderator of the newsgroup alt.illuminati. This unmoderated newsgroup was created by Gregg Bloom, a software programmer and systems manager, on 16 April 1993. He never posted to the newsgroup until, in response to this website, Colz Grigor, claiming to be Gregg S. Bloom, posted into alt.illuminati on 22 February 2003. [FNORD] Peter Trei posted the Bavarian Illuminati FAQ in November 1992 and Trevor W. McKeown first posted the Bavarian Illuminati Primer on February 18, 1996. Neither participated in the creation of the newsgroup nor are active in maintaining any archive. While a number of automated online cataloguers of FAQs have credited Trevor W. McKeown as the newsgroup moderator, this is an error.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica refers to Illuminati "cells" in an article on eighteenth century Italy as "republican freethinkers, after the pattern recently established in Bavaria by Adam Weishaupt."20 and as a "rationalistic secret society" in an article on Roman Catholicism.21 Depending on your perspective, the lack of any detailed information on the Illuminati in the Encyclopaedia Britannica can be ascribed to their current power and secretiveness or to the much simpler explanation that the editors found the order to be of little importance in the flow of history and social development.
It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists have so confused the issue with claims of Illuminati complicity that the real conspiracies, the real danger to a free and open society, so often go unreported or unremarked.
Eliphas Lévi made the following unsubstantiated juxapositions in 1860:
"... it was this same memory handed on to secret associations of Rosicrucians, Illuminati and Freemasons which gave a meaning to their strange rites...." 22
"...under the names of Magic, Manicheanism, Illuminism and Masonry...." 23
"The maniacal circles of pretended illuminati go back to the bacchantes who murdered Orpheus. 24
"Long before there was any question of mediums and their evocations in America and France, Prussia had its illuminati and seers, who had habitual communications with the dead." 25
There is a secret correspondence belonging to the reign [of King Frederick William] which is cited by the Marquis de Luchet in his work against the illuminati..." 26
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More important than the existence of any illuminati after 1784, was the fear that they existed. John M. Roberts, in his Mythology of Secret Societies details this concern of European rulers, and concludes that their oppressive reactions to this fear provoked the very revolutions they sought to prevent. Another insight into how this fear outstripped the facts can be found in Vernon L. Stauffer’s New England and the Bavarian Illuminati (1918).
Although attempts have been made to revive the order, none appear to have survived their founders. As an example, William Westcott, in exchange for the Swedenborgian Rite, received membership in the "Order of the Illuminati" from Theodor Reuss in 1902. Documentation is not available, nor is any explanation or description of this "Order" given. 27
These societies are only of interest insofar as they have been claimed by anti-masons and conspiracy theorists to demonstrate a perceived long-term anti-christian conspiracy. There is no similarity between the objectives of these societies and the Bavarian Illuminati.
Hesychasts: Hesychasm is a form of Eastern Christian monastic life requiring uninterrupted prayer. Dating from the 13th century, it was confirmed by the Orthodox Church in 1341, 1347 and 1351, and popularized by the publication of the "Philokalia" in 1782.
Alumbrados: (Spanish : 'enlightened') A mystical movement, at one time led by La Beata de Piedrahita (d. 1511); first recorded about 1492 in Spain (a varient spelling, aluminados, is found in 1498). They believed that the human soul could enter into direct communication with the Holy Spirit and, due to their extravagant claims of visions and revelations, had three edicts issued against them by the Catholic Inquisition, the first on 23 September 1525. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "some of its features reappear in the Quietism of the Spaniard Michael de Molinos". Although Ignatius of Loyola — founder of the Jesuits in 1534, and composer of the "Constitutions" of the Society of Jesus — was brought before an ecclesiastical commission in Alcalá in 1527 to determine if his teachings were heretical, he was cleared of any suspicion that he was an alumbrado, He wrote nothing that would suggest he accepted their beliefs.28 The name translates as 'illuminati' but the name is the only similarity with the later Bavarian Illuminati. 29
Guérinets: The alumbrados, under the name of Illuminés, arrived in France from Seville in 1623, and were joined in 1634 by Pierre Guérin, curé of Saint-Georges de Roye, whose followers in Picardy and Flanders, known as Guérinets, were suppressed in 1635 (Jean Hermant 1650-1725, Histoire des hérésies, Rouen : 1727). "Another and obscure body of Illuminés came to light in the south of France in 1722, and appears to have lingered till 1794, having affinities with those known contemporaneously in this country as 'French Prophets,' an offshoot of the Camisards." [Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911 edition.]
Société des Illuminés d'Avignon: Formed by Dom Antoine Joseph de Pernetti and the Polish Count Thaddeus Leszczy Grabianka in Avignon, France in 1786 (Kenning says 1787); later moving to Montpellier as the "Acadamy of True Masons". Although Kloss claims they were in existence in 1812, they would seem to have disappeared in the French Revolution.
Illuminated Theosophists or Chastanier’s Rite: A 1767 modification of Pernetti’s "Hermetic Rite" that later merged with the London Theosophical Society in 1784.
Concordists: A secret order established in Prussia by M. Lang, on the wreck of the Tugendverein (Union of the Virtuous), which latter Body was instituted in 1790 [Miller says 1786] by Henrietta and Marcus Herz as a successor of the Illuminati [or Moses Mendelssohn]. According to Thomas Frost, Secret Societies of the European Revolution, vol. i, p. 183 [cited in Occult Theocrasy, p. 377.] a second Tugendbund was formed by von Stein in 1807. It was suppressed in 1812 by the Prussian Government, on account of its supposed political tendencies, and was revived briefly between 1830-33.
World League of Illuminati: Allegedly the singer and journalist Theodor Reuss "re-activated" the Order of Illuminati in Munich in 1880. Leopold Engel founded his World League of Illuminati in Berlin in 1893. From these two sprung the Ordo Illuminatorum which was still active in Germany as late as the mid-1970s. Much research has been compiled by Peter-R. Koenig.
Illuminates of Stockholm: The Illuminated Chapter of Swedish Rite Freemasonry is currently composed of approximately 60 past or current Grand Lodge officers who have received the honorary 11th degree. It makes no claim to be related, historically or philisophically, with the Bavarian Illuminati and strictly speaking should not be included in this list.
Die Alte Erleuchtete Seher Bayerns: Alleged by Marc Lachance to have been founded in 1947 by employees of the Munich newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, there are unsubstantiated claims to a longer lineage. With some 100 members claimed in Bavaria, Baden-Württemburg and Thuringia, they have disavowed ritual, and keep organised structure to a minimum. 30
The Illuminati Order: Founded sometime prior to 1988, this T a l l a h a s s e e Florida based group was brought online in 2001 by Solomon Tulbure [1969/10/18 - 2004/11/17], one time Grand Master whose idiosyncratic behaviour later estranged him from the group. Currently the Illuminati Order can be found online at illuminati-order.com.
Orden Illuminati: Another addition to the list of claimants to the Illuminati tradition, this group was founded in Spain in 1995 by Gabriel López de Rojas and could be found online at www.ordeniluminati.com from October 2000 until February 2008.
Notes:
Cf."diabolical tenets", The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799; prepared under the direction of the United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission and published by authority of Congress; John C. Fitzpatrick, editor. Washington : U.S. Govt. Print. Off. [1931-44] 39 v. fronts. (incl. ports.) illus., maps (1 fold.) plans, facsims. (part fold.) 24 cm. vol. 36. See entry for October 24, 1798.
1. Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Albert G. Mackey. Richmond, Virginia: Macoy Publishing. 1966, p.474.
2.Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, Written in French by the Abbé Barruel, and translated into English by the Hon. Robert Clifford, F.R.S. & A. S. "Princes and Nations shall disappear from the face of the Earth ... and this revolution shall be the work of secret societies." Weishaupt’s Discourse for the Mysteries. Part I. The Antichristian Conspiracy. Second Edition, revised and corrected. London: Printed for the Translator, by T. Burton, No. 11, Gate-fleet, Lincoln’s-Inn Fields. Sold by E. Booker, No. 56, New Bond-Street. 1798 [Entered at Stationers Hall.] p. 261.
3. Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe carried on in the Secret Meetings of the Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies, collected from Good Authorities, John Robison (1739 - 1805). printed by George Forman for Cornelious David, Edinburgh: 1797. (531 pages). Postscript, p. 2.
4. "In 1773 Pope Clement XIV, under pressure especially from the governments of France, Spain and Portugal, issued a decree abolishing the order. The society’s corporate existence was maintained in Russia, where political circumstances—notably the opposition of Catherine II the Great—prevented the canonical execution of the suppression. The demand that the Jesuits take up their former work, especially in the field of education and in the missions, became so insistent that in 1814 Pope Pius VII reestablished the society." The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Chicago: 1989, 15th edition.
5. Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Albert G. Mackey. Richmond, Virginia: Macoy Publishing. 1966, p. 1099.
*.
In a footnote to letter No 6 to "Ajax", undated but from the beginning of 1777, Weishaupt writes: "I will go to Munich before the carnival, and will be received in the famous Freymaurer Orden (Order of F∴ M∴). Ne timeas. Our business is in good way; we learn how to know a new nexus (bond, secrecy) and we will become thus reliquis fortiores (stronger than the others). " This would be sometime before 12 February 1777. Cited in La Conjuration des Illuminés, Henry Coston. Paris: Henry Coston, 1979. pp. xxxvii-xxxviii. Pb. 304 pp.
6. The Secret Societies of all ages and Countries [in two volumes], Charles William Heckethorn. London: George Redway. 1897 p.310. Cf. Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism.
7.
"Among his adepts was one LANZ, an apostate priest. Weishaupt designed him as the person to carry his mysteries and conspiracies into Selesia. His mission was already fixed, and Weishaupt was giving him his last instructions, when a thunder-bolt from Heaven struck the apostate dead, and that by the side of Weishaupt. The Brethren, in their first fright, had not recourse to their ordinary means for diverting the papers of the deceased adept from the inspection of the magistrate. [footnote] See the Apology of the Illuminees, P. 62." Barruel. p. 244.
Cf.: "When my late friend Lanz was struck by lightning at my side in the year 1785 in Regensburg, what an opportunity this could have provided me to play the penitent and remorseful hypocrite, and thus gain the confidence of my persecutors." trans. from : "Als im Jahre 1785 in Regensburg mein seeliger Freund Lanz an meiner Seite vom Blitz ersclagen wurde, welche Gelegenheit hätte ich gehabt, den reumütigen und bußfertigen Heuchler zu machen und auf diese Art das Zutrauen meiner Verfolger zu erwerben?" Kurze Rechtfertigung meiner Absichten. Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1787. Quoted in Die Illuminaten, Quellen und Text zur Aufklärungsideologie des Illuminatenordens (1776-1785) Herausgegeben von Jan Rachold. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1984. p. 363. Also see pp. 127, 132, 140, 150-160, 168 for Franz Georg Lang.
8. Mackey. p. 475.
9. Mackey. p. 1099.
10.Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie vol. 41, p. 539. Cf. Albert Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry notes 1811.
11.Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia, Henry Wilson Coil. New York: Macoy Publishing. 1961 p. 545.
12. Kenning’s Masonic Cyclopaedia and Handbook of Masonic Archeaology, History and Biography, ed. Rev. A. F. A. Woodford. London: 1878. p. 326.
13. Adam Weishaupt, An Improved System of the Illuminati, Gotha: 1787.
14. Adam Weishaupt (1748 - 1811), An Apology for the Illuminati, Gotha: 1787.
15. See biographical notes: New England and the Bavarian Illuminati, Chapter III, pp. 142-228. Vernon L. Stauffer. 1918. with bibliographical notes.
16. Heckethorn, p. 314.
17. Heckethorn, pp. 305-16; Barruel, pp. 202-05. Estimates of the total membership have ranged from Le Forestier’s 650 to Albert MacKey’s 2000. Renée" le Forestier, 'Les Illuminés de Bavière et la Franc-Maçonnerie Allemande.'1914 [PhD paper]
*Noted in Man, Myth & Magic. No. 50, p. 1404. Ellic Howe [1910-1991]. BPC Publishing Ltd., London: 1970. [also source for portraits of Weishaupt and Knigge.]
†Also listed by Augustin Barruel (1741/10/02 - 1820/10/05). p. 202.
‡Barruel lists a "Bode, F. H." and a "Busche, F. H.". p. 202.
§Not listed by Barruel. Heckethorne does not note if this is General Claude-Louise, compte de Saint-Germain (1707/04/15 - 1778/01/15), Louise XVI’s minister of war, or the compte de Saint-Germain (c.1710 - 1784/02/27?), a celebrated adventurer known as der Wundermann who Cagliostro, in his Mémoires authentiques, claimed was the founder of Freemasonry.
18. J.M. Roberts, "The Mythology of Secret Societies", New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1972, pp. 123-4.
19. Christopher McIntosh, "The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason", Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1992, reviewed by Robert Gilbert in the Transactions of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, London: Butler & Tanner Ltd.1993 p. 241.
20. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition. Vol. 22, p. 223, 2b.
21. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition. Vol. 26, p. 937, 2b.
22. Eliphas Lévi. The History of Magic. Reprinted by Samual Weiser, Inc., New York: 1973. p. 32.
23. ibid. p. 65.
24. ibid p. 130.
25.ibid. Chapter VI: "The German Illuminati". p. 317.
26.ibid p. 317.
27.26.R.A. Gilbert. "Chaos out of order: the rise and fall of the Swedenborgian Rite". Ars Quatuor Coronatorum. Transactions of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076. Volume 108 for the Year 1995. Edited by Robert A. Gilbert. p. 134.
28."The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius", trans. by L.J. Puhl (1951); "The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus; Translated with an Introduction and a Commentary", by G.E. Ganss:1970.
29.Alumbrados: Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo (1856/11/03-1912/05/19), Los Heterodoxos Españioles, 1881, vol. v. ; aluminados : Francisco López de Villalobos, Sumario de la medicina, 1498, reprinted in vol. xxiv of the publications of the Sociedad de bibliofilos espanoles, Madrid : 1886. Also see John E. Longhurst, "Alumbrados, erasmistas y luteranos en el proceso de Juan de Vergara," in Cuadernos de historia de España, vols. xxvii, 1958.
30.Marc Etienne Lachance is a German freelance database and website developer with an interest in role-playing games, the Church of the SubGenius and Principia Discordia. There is no corroboration for his claims, first recorded in the usenet newsgroup alt.politics.nationalism.white on 1998/09/26. [FNORD]
Primary source published texts:
The Secret School of Wisdom - The Authentic Rituals and Doctrines of the Illuminati. Josef Waeges, Reinhard Markner (editors), and Jeva Singh-Anand (translator). Shepperton: Ian Allan Publishing, Lewis Masonic. 2014.ISBN: 9780853184935 ISBN-13: 9780853184935.
Die Bibliothek des Deutschen Freimaurermuseums in Bayreuth - Katalog.
Knigge, Adolph, Freiherr von (1752-1796), Freimaurer- und Illuminatenschriften. Raabe Paul [Editor] Samtliche Werke / Knigge, Adolph, Facsim. of 1781-1873 eds & transcription of MS. München, Sau: Nendeln : KTO, 1978-92.
Nicolai, Christoph Friedrich (3/18/1733 - 1/8/1811), Versuch über die Besschuldigungen welch dem Tempelherrnorden gemacht worden und über dessen Geheimniss; nebst einem Anhange uber das Entstehen der Freimaurergesellschaft. [An Essay on the accusations made against the Order of Knights Templar and their mystery; with an Appendix on the origin of the Fraternity of Freemasons], Berlin: 1782.
Weishaupt, Adam, Die Illuminaten : Quellen und Texte zur Aufklärungsideologie des Illuminatenordens (1776-1785) / herausgegeben von Jan Rachold. Berlin : Akademie-Verlag, 1984. 409 p. ; 20 cm. LCCN: 85111344
Weishaupt, Adam, Die Leuchte des Diogenes oder Prüfung unserer heutigen Moralität und Aufklärung. Regensburg: Montag Š Weiß 1804 [Ratisbon 1805] English translation: Diogenes' Lamp or an Examination of our Present-Day Morality and Enlightenment. Bloomington : The Masonic Book Club, 2008.
Weishaupt, Adam, Über die Selbsterkenntnis. Ihre Hindernisse und Vorteile. Nach dem Original von 1794. [3. Aufl. hrsg. im Auftrage von Ordo Illuminatorum (u.a.) Zürich, Psychosophische Gesellschaft, 1966] 200 p. 15 cm. LCCN: 67106086.
Weishaupt, Adam, Illuminatenorden. Die neuesten Arbeiten des Spartacus und Philo in dem Illuminaten-Orden jetzt zum erstenmal gedruckt und zur Beherzigung bey gegenwärtigen Zeitläuften herausgeben. [n.p.] 1794. 200, 90, 77 p. 20 cm. LCCN: 77465925.
Weishaupt, Adam, Ueber die Gründe und Gewisheit der menschlichen Erkenntniss; zur Prüfung der Kantischen Critik der reinen Vernunft. Nürnberg, in der Grattenauerischen Buchhandlung, 1788. [Bruxelles, Culture et Civilisation, 1969] 204 p. 19 cm. LCCN: 73357961.
Weishaupt, Adam, Apologie der Illuminaten ... Frankfurth und Leipzig [i.e. Nürnberg] In der Grattenauerischen Buchhandlung, 1786. p. cm. Zweifel über die Kantischen Begriffe von Zeit und Raum. LCCN: 09011125.
Weishaupt, Adam, Zweifel über die Kantischen Begriffe von Zeit und Raum. Nürnberg, 1788. [Bruxelles, Culture et Civilisation, 1968] 120 p. 19 cm. LCCN: 79459272.
Additional references:
"Illuminism and the French Revolution". Edinburgh Review. vol. 204, July 1906. pp. 35-60.
Jedediah Morse
and the Bavarian Illuminati: An Essay on the Rhetoric of Conspiracy Central States Speech Journal Fall/Winter 1988. pages 293-303.
New England and the Bavarian Illuminati Chapter III, pp. 142-228. Vernon L. Stauffer. 1918. with bibliographical notes.
Bavarian Illuminati FAQ Ver 1.2. Peter Trei. Jan. 1994. Further references to popular usage of the term "Illuminati." Mirrored frequently online. Also see www.anti-masonry.info/alt.illuminati_FAQ.html.
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