can practically
guarantee you'll never see this article
in Reader's Digest. But I love to do
these Digest-style biographies of famous
people in the paranormal field, so here
goes. He's been called many things. The
Abbe Barruel called him "a human devil."
Thomas Jefferson called him "a harmless
philanthropist." Prof. John Robinson
called him "the profoundest conspirator
that ever existed." But what's the real
story behind the man who simply called
himself “Brother Spartacus?” Adam
Weishaupt was born on February 6, 1748
in Ingolstadt, a city in Bayern
(Bavaria), Germany, which was then an
independent kingdom. When he was a baby,
his parents, who had been Orthodox Jews,
converted to the Roman Catholic Church.
Instead of attending the yeshiva, Adam
attended monastery schools and later a
hochschule (high school) run by the
Society of Jesus.
As a Bavarian, Adam learned Czech and
Italian as a child, and in school, he
soon mastered Latin, Greek and, with his
father's help, Hebrew. With his avid
scholarship and knack for languages, his
Jesuit superiors thought he would be a
natural for overseas missionary work,
perhaps in the Americas or in Asia. But
Adam rebelled against Jesuit discipline,
resisted their overtures and eventually
became the professor of canon law at the
University of Ingolstadt. Beginning
around 1768, Adam began “the collection
of a large library for the purpose of
establishing an academy of scholars.” He
read every ancient manuscript and text
he and his associates could lay hands
on. Adam grew interested in the occult,
becoming obsessed with the Great Pyramid
of Giza.
He was convinced that the edifice was a
prehistoric temple of initiation. In
1770, he made the acquaintance of Franz
Kolmer, a Danish merchant who had lived
for many years in Alexandria and had
made several trips to Giza.. The
following year, 1771, Adam decided to
found a secret society aimed at
"transforming" the human race. He
devoted five years to thinking out the
plan, borrowing from many different
occult sources. His first name for the
proposed order, Perfectibilisen,
suggests that he borrowed from the
Cathars, a gnostic religion that
flourished in Europe for four hundred
years. The Cathars, whose name means
“perfect ones,” were decimated in the
Albigensian Crusade of Pope Innocent III
during the early Thirteenth Century.
Adam fashioned his order in the form of
(what else?) a pyramid.
“Its members, pledged to obedience to
their superiors, were divided into three
main classes; the first including
novices, minervals and lesser illuminati
the second consisting,” like the
Freemasons, of “ordinary, Scottish and
Scottish Knights, and the third, or
mystery class, comprising two grades of
priest and regent, and of magus and
king,” or Illuminatus Rex. This
hierarchy, incidentally, is identical to
the table of organization of the Sufis
of Islam, which has some historians
wondering if Adam's friend Kolmer was a
closet Sufi. The Illuminati were a
closemouthed bunch. “Every candidate had
to give a written promise to tell nobody
of this society. He learned nothing of
his superiors and of the origin of the
society, but was confirmed in the belief
that the order could be traced back to
antiquity and that its members included
even popes and cardinals.” He further
vowed eternal silence and strict
obedience.
Every month he had to send a report to
his superior, “whom he did not know.”
Adam felt that human society had grown
hopelessly corrupt and that it could
only be saved by a complete overhaul. In
effect, he was the first utopian to
think on a global scale, and he looked
forward to the day his group would bring
about the Novus Ordo Seclorum, sometimes
called the New World Order. The
Illuminati had five goals, including
“(a) Abolition of monarchies and all
ordered governments, (2) Abolition of
private property and inheritances, (3)
Abolition of patriotism and nationalism,
(4) Abolition of family life and the
institution of marriage, and the
establishment of communal education of
children. (5) Abolition of all
religion.” By drawing upon Europe's
“best and brightest,” Adam was confident
that the order could attain its goals.
He wrote, “The pupils are convinced that
the Order will rule the world. Every
member therefore becomes a ruler. We all
think of ourselves as qualified to rule.
It is therefore an alluring thought both
to good and bad men. Therefore the Order
will spread.”
He also urged his followers not to
shrink from committing violence or
criminal acts in meeting Illuminati
objectives, writing, “Sin is only that
which is hurtful, and if the profit is
greater than the damage, it becomes a
virtue.” Recruitment proceeded at a
brisk pace. Adam rallied many able
lieutenants to his cause. Such as Baron
Xavier von Zwack, who lobbied for the
order in Germany and in Britain, too,
with help from William Petty, the second
Earl of Shelburne. And Baron Adolf von
Knigge, who brokered a “shotgun
marriage” between Illuminism and
European Freemasonry at the Congress of
Whilhelmsbad in 1782. By 1782, the
Illuminati “had spread from Denmark to
Portugal,” and even further afield.
Illuminized Britons joined with
like-minded Americans to found the
Columbian Lodge in New York City that
year. A young Russian nobleman,
Alexander Radischev, joined the order in
Leipzieg and carried the doctrines home
to St. Petersburg.
In Lisboa (Lisbon), a poet named Claudio
Manuel da Costa became a member and,
upon returning home to Brazil, founded a
chapter with two doctors from Ouro Preto,
Domingos Vidal Barbosa and Jose Alvares
Maciel. In 1788, this trio launched the
first Illuminati uprising, the
Inconfidencia Mineira, but the revolt
was nipped in the bud by the viceroy,
the Marquis de Barbacena. Meanwhile,
back in Germany, Adam was learning that
life as the Illuminatus Rex was not
quite the paradise he'd envisioned. His
long-time mistress became pregnant and
insisted that he either pay up or marry
her. Adam stalled, and the lady
threatened to go public with the
scandal. Baron von Knigge, who had given
the Illuminatenorden a big boost by
allying with Freemasonry, thought he
should be rewarded by becoming Adam's
co-ruler in the order. Adam disagreed,
and the resulting feud between the two
men resulted in von Knigge quitting the
order in 1784. To make matters worse,
Illuminati writers Johann Herder and
Johann G. Fichte had begun beating the
drum for German unification. Their calls
for "Ein volk und ein Reich" were
completely out of sync with Adam's plan
to do away with nationalism. While Adam
may have been a brilliant scholar, he
lacked the leader's touch. He was too
high-handed and arrogant, disinclined to
listen to the advice of subordinates.
These characteristics enraged some of
the lesser Illuminati, such as Joseph
Utschneider, and they awaited the day
they would have their revenge. The day
was not long in coming. An Illuminati
courier was struck by lightning and
killed. When the Bavarian police
searched his body, they found coded
messages from Weishaupt sewn into the
clothes. At this critical juncture,
Utschneider and his three companions
came forward and told the Bavarian
authorities all about the Illuminati. As
a result, the King of Bavaria banned the
order in August 1784. Fired from his
position at the university, and accused
of everything from treason to goat
molestation, Adam fled Ingolstadt on
horseback and went to Regensburg. When
he found the people there equally
hostile, he rode on to Gotha, where he
was offered refuge by Duke Ernst II. An
associate, Dr. Schwartz, loaded the
order's collection of Kabbalist, Cathar,
Sufi and occult books into an ox-cart
and begn the long journey eastward to
Moscow.
Weishaupt's escape to Gotha resembles
the "midnight ride" of Paul Revere and
William Dawes in 1775. And Dr.
Schwartz's trip to Moscow has its
parallel in the wagon trains of the
first Oregon pioneers. Maybe he should
have put a sign on the cart--Mockba
hhaye Khytekh, "Moscow or Bust." The
"profoundest conspirator that ever
existed" lived out the rest of his life
in exile in Gotha. He got into more
mischief in the French Revolution with
his friend and correspondent, Jean-Baptiste
Willermoz, the Illuminatus of Lyons. And
lived long enough to inspire new
generations of Illuminati--Anacharsis
Cloots, Francois Babeuf and Filippo
Buonarotti, among others. Adam Weishaupt
died on November 18, 1830 in Gotha. Even
in death, he remains a figure of
controversy. The Roman Catholic
Encyclopedia of 1910 said Weishaupt
repented on his deathbed and was
reconciled with the Church. Author Gary
Allen claimed that Adam was working on
an essay on hermetic art magick, Two
Fragments of a Ritual, when he suddenly
dropped dead. Quien sabe?
Proper assessment of Adam's role in
history may have to wait a few more
centuries, for a generation of more
objective historians. His is still a
hot-button name. Here in the USA,
fundamentalist Christians consider Adam
Weishaupt a kind of sinister John the
Baptist, proclaiming the global Kingdom
of Satan. And those who favor the New
World Order... well, they don't say much
of anything. Mention the names "Adam
Weishaupt" and "Illuminati," and they
tend to grit their teeth and scowl. For
myself, whenever I think about Adam
Weishaupt and his sect, the haunting
question of Jesus Christ comes to mind.
“Can an evil tree produce good fruit?”
(See The New World Order by Pat
Robertson, Word Publishing, Dallas,
Texas, 1991, pages 180 through 183;
Einige Originalschriften des
Illuminatenordens, Munich, 1786; and
Essai sur la secte des Illuminees, by
J.P.L. de la Roche de Maine, Paris,
1792.)
http://ufoinfo.com/roundup/
Joseph Trainor,2000.
Footnote: John Robinson, a
professor of natural philosophy at
Edinburgh University in Scotland and a
member of a Freemason Lodge there, said
he had been asked to join the
Illuminati. After consideration he
concluded that the Illuminati were not
for him. In 1798 he published a book
called "Proofs of a Conspiracy" in which
he wrote: “An association has been
formed for the express purposes of
rooting out all the religious
establishments and overturning all
existing governments. . .the leaders
would rule the World with uncontrollable
power, while all the rest would be
employed as tools of the ambition of
their unknown superiors”. “Proofs of a
Conspiracy” was sent to George
Washington who replied that he was aware
that the Illuminati were in America and
that they had “diabolical tenets”.
Ed.