Proofs Of A Conspiracy, By John Robison: Chapter II. The Illuminati

It was then discovered that this and several associated Lodges were the nursery or preparation-school for another Order of Masons, who called themselves the ILLUMINATED, and that the express aim of this Order was to abolish Christianity, and overturn all civil government. In pursuance of these principles, the Lodge Theodore professedly occupied itself with œconomical, statistical, and political matters, and not only published from time to time discourses on such subjects by the Brother Orator, but the Members considered themselves as in duty bound to propagate and inculcate the same doctrines out of doors. The Lodge Theodore was the place where the above-mentioned doctrines were most zealously propagated. He embraced with great keenness this opportunity of spreading the favorite doctrines of the Lodge, and his auditory became the seminary of Cosmopolitism. And during this state of the minds of the auditory the transition to general infidelity and irreligion is so easy, and so inviting to sanguine youth, prompted perhaps by a latent wish that the restraints which religion imposes on the expectants of a future state might be found, on enquiry, to be nothing but groundless terrors; that I imagine it requires the most anxious care of the public teacher to keep the minds of his audience impressed with the reality and importance of the great truths of religion, while he frees them from the shackles of blind and absurd superstition.

5. (Mrs. Throckmorton, one of the bank's oldest coustomers (the number of years as a customer, not her age), comments on why she keeps rare gems instead of stocks:) I don't keep my savings in cockamamie stocks and bonds, but in diamonds and rubies that will last forever! These have in all ages been the archives of nature, and of the rights of men; and by them shall human nature be raised from her fallen state. There was also a set of portraits, or characters of eighty-five ladies in Munich; with recommendations of some of them for members of a Lodge of Sister Illuminatæ; also injunctions to all the Superiors to learn to write with both hands; and that they should use more than one cypher. The engaging pictures of the possible felicity of a society where every office is held by a man of talents and virtue, and where every talent is set in a place fitted for its exertion, forcibly catches the generous and unsuspecting minds of youth, and in a Roman Catholic state, far advanced in the habits of gross superstition (a character given to Bavaria by its neighbours) and abounding in monks and idle dignitaries, the opportunities must be frequent for observing the inconsiderate dominion of the clergy, and the abject and indolent submission of the laity.

I would conjure them by the regard they have for their own dignity, and for their rank in society, to join against these enemies of human nature, and profligate degraders of the sex; and I would assure them that the present state of things almost puts it in their power to be the saviours of the world. Some of them were said to be absolutely false; and the rest were said to be mistakes. Let us cherish these with care, as the delight of thinking beings--they have destroyed our mistakes as to our relation to the rest of the universe; errors which were the more fatal, because the social Order depends on justice and truth alone. Accordingly Professor Weishaupt says, in his Apology for Illuminatism, that Deism, Infidelity, and Atheism are more prevalent in Bavaria than in any country he was acquainted with. Truth," says Philo, "is a clever, but a modest girl, who must be led by the hand like a gentlewoman, but not kicked about like a whore." Spartacus complains much of the squeamishness of Philo; yet Philo is not a great deal behind him in irreligion. When describing to Cato the Christianity of the Priest-degree, as he had manufactured it, he says, "It is all one whether it be true or false, we must have it, that we may tickle those who have a hankering for religion." All the odds seems to be, that he was of a gentler disposition, and had more deference even for the absurd prejudices of others. In one of his angry letters to Cato he says; "The vanity and self conceit of Spartacus would have got the better of all prudence, had I not checked him, and prevailed on the Areopagitæ but to defer the developement of the bold principles till we had firmly secured the man.

It was not meant to be rigorously enforced, but was intended as a trial of the deference of these Associations for civil authority. In his first fervour and high expectations, he hinted to several Ex-Jesuits the probability of their recovering, under a new name, the influence which they formerly possessed, and of being again of great service to society, by directing the education of youth of distinction, now emancipated from all civil and religious prejudices. They said now that they had burnt them all, as of no use, since that Order was at an end. I may repeat the account given of the sex by a person of uncommon experience, who saw them without disguise, or any motive that could lead them to play a feigned part.--Mr. A crooked bank official, who knows. Some of the members occasionally heard of certain candidates for illumination called MINERVALS, who were sometimes seen among them. Salms, who soon after had so great a hand in the disturbances in Holland.