THE ILLUMINATI.From Bavaria, the Order of the Illuminati spread into the Upper and Lower Rhenish provinces, Swabia, Franconia, Westphalia, Upper and Lower Saxony; and outside Germany into Austria and Switzerland. Soon they had over 300 members from all walks of life, including students, merchants, doctors, lawyers, judges, professors, civil officers, bankers, and ministers. Some of their more notable members were: the Duke of Orleans, Duke Ernst Augustus of Saxe-Weimar-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Charles of Hesse-Cassel, Johann Gottfried von Herder(a philosopher), Count Klemens von Metternich, Catherine II of Russia, Count Gabriel de Mirabeau, Marquis of Constanza ("Diomedes"), Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick ("Aaron"), Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (a poet), Joseph II of Russia, Christian VII of Denmark, Gustave III of Sweden, and King Poniatowski of Poland.
By 1783, there were over 600 members; and by 1784, their membership reached nearly 3,000. By 1786 they had numerous lodges across the various German provinces, Austria, Hungary, England, Scotland, Poland, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Spain, Sweden, Russia, Ireland, Africa, and America.
By the time of the 3rd Masonic Congress in Frankfurt in 1786, the Illuminati virtually controlled all the Masonic lodges, and at this meeting their goals were stated as: "1) Pantheism for the higher degrees, atheism for the lower degrees and the populace; 2) Communism of goods, women, and general concerns; 3) The destruction of the Church, and all forms of Christianity, and the removal of all existing human governments to make way for a universal republic in which the utopian ideas of complete liberty from existing social, moral, and religious restraint, absolute equality, and social fraternity, should reign."
Students who were members of wealthy families, with international leanings, were recommended for special training in internationalism. Those selected by the Illuminati were given scholarships to attend special schools. Weishaupt wrote: "I propose academies under the direction of the Order. This will secure us the adherence of the Literati. Science shall here be the lure." He also wrote: "We must acquire the direction of education, of church, management of the professorial chair, and of the pulpit." Today, there are many such schools. Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth, was educated at an Illuminati school in Gordonstown, Scotland, at the insistence of Lord Louis Mountbatten (whose uncle was a Rothschild relative and who became an admiral after the end of World War II). Those trained at such schools were placed behind the scenes as experts and advisors to perpetuate Illuminati goals.
Weishaupt, worried that his control of the Order was diminishing, argued repeatedly with Knigge. While he preferred to work in secrecy, Knigge wanted to move on to more substantial things. In January, 1783, Knigge wrote in a letter to Zwack: "It is the Jesuitry of Weishaupt that causes all our divisions, it is the despotism that he exercises over men perhaps less rich than himself in imagination, in ruses, in cunning...I declare that nothing can put me on the same footing with Spartacus as that on which I was a first." He also wrote: "I abhor treachery and profligacy, and I leave him to blow himself and his Order into the air." On April 20, 1784, Knigge quit, followed by Baron Bassus ("Hannibal"), Count Torring, Prince Kreitmaier, and others. In July, Knigge signed an agreement promising to return all documents in his possession, and to keep quiet on what he knew about their plans and activities. Some researchers believe that Knigge had also discovered that Weishaupt was a Satanist. He resumed his work as a writer, later becoming an inspector of schools at Bremen, where he died on May 6, 1796.
To insure that the activities of the Order would remain a secret, a warning as to the consequences of betraying the Order was included in the ceremony of initiation. They would point a sword at the initiate and say: "If you are a traitor and a perjurer, learn that all our Brothers are called upon to arm themselves against you. Do not hope to escape or find a place of safety. Wherever you are, shame, remorse, and the rage of our Brothers will pursue you, and torment you to the innermost recesses of your entrails."
In October, 1783, Joseph Utzschneider, a lawyer, who had dropped out of the Order in August, presented to the Duchess Maria Anna, a document which detailed the activities of the Illuminati. He was upset because he had been promoted too slow, and was constantly prodded to prove his loyalty. The Duchess gave the information to the Duke. On June 22, 1784, Duke Karl Theodore Dalberg, the Elector Palatinate of Bavaria, after discovering from the information that the goals of the Illuminati were to "in time rule the world," by overthrowing all civil government, criticized all secret societies, and groups established without government sanction. On March 2, 1785, he issued a proclamation identifying the Illuminati as a branch of the Masons, and ordered that their Lodges be shut down. The government began a war against the Order by initiating judicial inquiries at Ingolstadt. In an attempt to preserve the secrecy of their motives, the Areopagite burned many of their documents, however, the government was able to seize many of their papers when they raided the Lodges.
After being replaced at the University in February, Weishaupt fled across the border into Regensburg, finally settling in Gotha, where he found refuge with another Illuminati member, the Duke of Saxe-Gotha.
In April, 1785, Utzschneider was able to convince three other members to come forward. They were fellow professors at the Marienburg (Marianen) Academy who had doubts about the validity of the organization's principles when they discovered that they would receive no mystical powers. They were also disgruntled over Weishaupt's tyranny. Cossandey, Grunberger, and Renner went before the Court of Inquiry on September 9, 1785, where they supplied valuable information, such as membership lists, and revealed their aims and goals, which they consolidated into the following six points:
1) Abolition of the Monarchy and all ordered government.
2) Abolition of private property.
3) Abolition of inheritance.
4) Abolition of patriotism.
5) Abolition of the family, through the abolition of marriage, all morality, and the institution of communal education for children.
6) Abolition of all religion.
The purposes of these six points were to divide the people politically, socially, and economically; to weaken countries and create a one-world government. They testified that "all religion, all love of country and loyalty to sovereigns, were to be annihilated..."
The government pardoned all public officials and military leaders who publicly admitted membership. Those who didn't, and were discovered to be members, lost their rank and standing, were removed from office, and openly disgraced and humiliated.
Weishaupt was preparing to set his plans into motion for the French Revolution, which was slated to begin in 1789. In July, 1785, he instructed Zwack to put their plans in book form. This book contained a history of the Illuminati, and many of their ideas for expansion and future endeavors. A copy was sent by courier (identified as Jacob Lanze) to Illuminati members in Paris and Silesia. However, after leaving Frankfurt, as the courier rode through Regensburg (another source says it was Ratisbon) on horseback, he was struck by lightning and killed. The authorities found the document and turned it over to the government. Another source indicates the possibility that he may have been murdered, and the documents planted on him.
Xavier Zwack ("Cato"), a government lawyer, and one of the Order's most prominent leaders, whose name was on Renner's list, had his house in Landshut illegally searched by the police in October, 1785, and his papers seized. He was dismissed from his position. Many books, documents, papers and correspondence were discovered, including over 200 letters written between Weishaupt and the members of the Areopagite, which dealt with matters of the highest secrecy. The following year, more information was taken from the houses of Baron Bassus and Count Massenhausen ("Ajar"). Among the confiscated documents, were tables which contained their secret codes and symbols, secret calendar, geographical locations, insignias, ceremonies of initiation, recruiting instructions, statutes, a partial roster of members, and nearly 130 official seals from the government, which were used to counterfeit state documents.
Needless to say, all of this information shed more light on the Order, and the danger first realized by the government, had now become a national emergency. In 1786, the government gathered all of the confiscated documents, and published them in a book called Original Writings of the Order and Sect of the Illuminati, which was circulated to every government and crowned head in Europe, including France, to warn them of the impending danger.
The leaders of the Order who appeared before the government's Court of Inquiry, testified that the organization was dedicated to the overthrow of church and state. However, these revelations, and the publication of their documents did little to alert the public, because of their unbelievable claims. New measures were taken by government officials. The leaders of the Order were arrested and formally interrogated, then forced to renounce the Illuminati. The final blow came on August 16, 1787, when Dalberg issued his final proclamation against the Illuminati. Anyone found guilty of recruiting members was to be executed, while those who were recruited, would have their property confiscated and then be deported.
Zwack, who was banished, sought sanctuary in the Court of Zweibrucken, where he was later appointed to an official position in the principality of Salm-Kyburg. He contributed to the Illuminati movement in Holland. He was later summoned by Dalberg, as the government tried to deal with the problem of fugitives who might attempt to reorganize the Order. Zwack fled to England.
On November 15, 1790, another Edict was announced against the members of the organization. Anyone found to be an active member, was to be put to death. The following year, a list of 91 names of alleged members was compiled. They were hunted down, and banished. This harassment didn't end until 1799, when Dalberg died.
The apparent demise of the Order was taken into stride by its highest members, who continued to operate underground. Weishaupt wrote: "The great care of the Illuminati after the publication of their secret writings was to persuade the whole of Germany that their Order no longer existed, that their adepts had all renounced, not only their mysteries, but as members of a secret society." Weishaupt had a contingency plan ready, and wrote: "By this plan we shall direct all mankind. In this manner, and by the simplest means, we shall set in motion and in flames. The occupations must be allotted and contrived, that we may in secret, influence all political transactions...I have considered everything and so prepared it, that if the Order should this day go to ruin, I shall in a year re-establish it more brilliant than ever."
To hide their subversive activities, the highest members of the Order began to masquerade as humanitarians and philanthropists. Weishaupt fled to Switzerland, later returning to Germany, where the Duke of Saxe-Gotha gave him sanctuary. The Order moved their headquarters to London, where it began to grow again. Weishaupt told his followers to infiltrate the lodges of Blue Masonry, and to form secret circles within them. Only Masons who proved themselves as Internationalists, and were atheists, were initiated into the Illuminati.Dr. Charles Frederick Bahrdt (1741-1793), an Illuminati member, Mason, and German theologian, who was the professor of Sacred Philogy at the University of Leipzig, took advantage of the Illuminati's apparent demise by recruiting several of its members for his so-called 'German Union' in 1787. Bahrdt, the son of a minister, called his group the German Union for Rooting Out Superstition and Prejudices and Advancing True Christianity.
In 1785, Bahrdt had received an anonymous letter, containing the plans for the German Union, which was signed, "From some Masons, your great admirers." That same year, he was visited by an Englishman who urged him to establish the Union, promising to link it with the British Masonic structure. In 1787, he received another letter containing more details and organizational details.
Bahrdt had done some religious propaganda work for Weishaupt, "to destroy the authority of the Scriptures," and it was commonly believed that it was Weishaupt who was directing the activities of the organization behind the scenes in order to carry on the goals of the Illuminati.
The German Union appeared to be a Reading Society, and one was set up in Zwack's house in Landshut. Weishaupt wrote: "Next to this, the form of a learned of literary society is best suited to our purpose, and had Freemasonry not existed, this cover would have been employed; and it may be much more than a cover, it may be a power engine in our hands. By establishing reading societies, and subscription libraries, and taking these under our direction, and supplying them through our labors, we may turn the public mind which way we will ... A literary society is the most proper form for the introduction of our Order into any State where we are yet strangers." They planned about 800 such Reading Rooms.
The membership initially consisted of 17 young men, and about five of Bahrdt's friends. Knigge helped him to develop the organizational structure, which was divided into six grades:
1) Adolescent
2) Man
3) Elder
4) Mesopolite
5) Diocesan
6) Superior
The 'Society of the 22' or the 'Brotherhood' was its inner circle.
In a pamphlet entitled To All Friends of Reason, Truth and Virtue, Bahrdt wrote that the organization's purpose was to accomplish the enlightenment of people in order to disseminate religion, remove popular prejudices, root out superstition, and restore liberty to mankind. They planned to have magazines and pamphlets, but by 1788, Bahrdt had sunk over $1,000 into the group, and was spending all of his time working on it. Despite his efforts, they still only had 200 members.
Near the end of 1788, Frederick Wilhelm, the King of Prussia, worried about the growth of the organization, had Johann Christian von Wollner, one of his ministers, write an opposing view to Bahrdt's pamphlet, called the Edict of Religion. Bahrdt responded by anonymously writing another pamphlet of the same name to satirize it. In 1789, a bookseller by the name of Goschen, wrote a pamphlet called More Notes Than Text, on the German Union of XXII, a New Secret Society for the Good of Mankind, in which he revealed that the group was a continuation of the Illuminati.
The German Union, which represented Weishaupt's "corrected system of Illuminism," never really got off the ground because of its openness, which provoked hostile attacks from the government and members of the clergy. Bahrdt left the group and opened up a tavern known as 'Bahrdt's Repose.' The German Union ceased to exist after he died in 1793.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
The Illuminati had secretly spread to France by 1787 (five years after they had planned), through French orator and revolutionary leader Count Gabriel Victor Riqueti de Mirabeau (1749-1791, Order name 'Leonidas') who had been indoctrinated by Col. Jacob Mauvillon while he was in Berlin on a secret mission for King Louis XVI of France in 1786. Mirabeau introduced Illuminati principles at the Paris Masonic Lodge of the Amis Reunis (later renamed 'Philalethes'), and initiated Abbé Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord (1754-1838, a court cleric in the House of Bourbon).
The most trusted members were brought into the 'Secret Committee of United Friends' (it is interesting to note that a group of the same name originated in 1771 as an occult group). The initiations took place at the Illuminati's Grand Lodge, about 30 miles from Paris, in the Ermenonville mansion owned by the Marquis de Gerardin. The famous impostor Saint Germain (1710-1780, or 1785) presided over the initiation ceremonies.
Germain was believed to be a Portuguese Jew, who was a member of the Philalethes Lodge. He was a Mason, a Rosicrucian, and belonged to several other occult brotherhoods. He spoke Italian, German, English, Spanish, French, Greek, Sanskrit, Arabic, and Chinese. He was said to be the son of Prince Rakoczy of Transylvania; raised by the last Medici, Gian Gastone; and was educated at the University of Siena. He told people that he had lived for centuries, and knew King Solomon. He was arrested in London in 1743 for being a Jacobite spy, and he took credit for establishing Freemasonry in Germany. As an impostor, he posed as Comte Bellamarre, Marquis de Montferrat, and Chevalier Schoening.
During the initiation, new members were sworn to "reveal to thy new chief all thou shalt have heard, learned and discovered, and also to seek after and spy into things that might have otherwise escaped thy notice ... (and to) avoid all temptation to betray what thou has now heard. Lightning does not strike so quickly as the dagger which will reach thee wherever thou mayest be."
Count Alessandro de Cagliostro (also known as Giuseppe Balsamo), a Jew from Sicily, who was said to be one of the greatest occult practitioners of all time, was initiated into the Illuminati at Mitau (near Frankfurt) in 1780, in an underground room. He later said, that an iron box filled with papers was opened, and a book taken out. From it, a member read the oath of secrecy, which began: "We, Grand Masters of Templars..." It was written in blood. The book was an outline of their plans, which included an attack on Rome. He discovered that they had money at their disposal in banks at Amsterdam, Rotterdam, London, Genoa, and Venice. He found out that the Illuminati had 20,000 lodges throughout Europe and America, and that their members served in every European court. Cagliostro was instructed to go to Strasbourg, France, to make the initial contacts necessary for the instigation of the French Revolution. Identified as a Grand Master of the Prieuré de Sion, it is believed that he was the liaison between them and the Illuminati. He was arrested in 1790, in Rome, for revolutionary activities.
The French Masons had committed themselves to a plan for overthrowing the government, under the guise of liberty and equality; ending the autocratic regimes, in order to have government by and for the people. Jeremy Bentham and William Petty (Earl of Shelburne) planned and directed the French Revolution, then later directed the plot towards America.
In 1788, at the request of Mirabeau and Talleyrand, Johann Joachim Christoph Bode (1730-1793, 'Amelius'), a lawyer at Weimar, and a Mason, was summoned to France. He had been initiated into the Illuminati at the Congress of Wilhelmsbad, and later took over the Order in the absence of Weishaupt. Bode and Baron de Busche ('Bayard'), a Dutch military officer in the service of the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, in order to conceal the purpose of their presence in France, said they were there to investigate the influence of the Jesuits on the secret societies. However, the real reason for them being there, was to further the goals of the Illuminati in France. They operated out of the Lodge of the Amis Reunis, changing its name to 'Philalethes,' which means, 'searchers after the truth.'
The Marquis de Luchet, a friend of Mirabeau, wrote in his Essay on the Sect of the Illuminati in January, 1789: "Deluded people. You must understand that there exists a conspiracy in favor of despotism, and against liberty, of incapacity against talent, of vice against virtue, or ignorance against light! ... Every species of error which afflicts the earth, every half-baked idea, every invention serves to fit the doctrines of the Illuminati ... The aim is universal domination."
Intellectuals known as 'encyclopedists' were instrumental in spreading Illuminati doctrine. Soon other lodges become aligned with the Philalethes, such as the Nine Sisters; the Lodge of Candor, which included members like Laclos, Sillery, D´Aiguillon; the Lameth Brothers, Dr. Guillotine, and Lafayette; and the Propaganda, which was established by Condorcet, Abbé Sieyes, and Rochenfoucault.
Revolutionary leaders in France, such as Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore de Robespierre (1758-1794), who was made head of the Revolution by Weishaupt; Marquis Antoine Nicholas Condorcet (1743-1794), philosopher and politician; Duke de la Rochenfoucault; George Jacques Danton (1759-1794); Marquis Marie Joseph de Lafayette (1757-1834), General and statesman; Jerome Petion de Villeneuve (1756-1794), politician; Philippe, Duke of Orleans, Grand Master of French Freemasonry; de Leutre; Fauchet; Cammille Benoit Desmoulins (1760-1794), D´Alembert; Denis Diderot (1713-1784), encyclopedist; and Jean-Francois de la Harpe (1739-1803), critic and playwright, all joined the Illuminati, who had eventually infiltrated all 266 Masonic lodges by 1789, even though the Masons weren't aware of it.
The Illuminati created situations in order to create dissention among the people. For instance, the Duke of Orleans instructed his agents to buy up as much grain as they could, then the people were led to believe that the King intentionally caused the shortage, and that the French people were starving. Fellow conspirators in the government helped create runaway inflation. Thus the people were manipulated into turning against a king whose reign had strengthened the middle class. The monarchy was to be destroyed, and the middle class oppressed. God was to be replaced by the Illuminati's religion of reason that "man's mind would solve man's problems."
During the first two years of the French Revolution, which started in April, 1789, the Illuminati had infiltrated the Masonic Lodges to such an extent, that they had ceased operation, and instead rallied under the name, "The French Revolutionary Club." When they needed a larger meeting place, they used the hall of the Jacobin's Convent. This revolutionary group of 1300 people emerged on July 14, 1789 as the Jacobin Club. The Illuminati controlled the Club, and were directly responsible for fermenting the activities which developed into the French Revolution. Lord Acton wrote: "The appalling thing in the French Revolution is not the tumult but the design. Through all the fire and smoke, we perceived the evidence of calculating organization. The managers remain studiously concealed and masked; but there is no doubt about their presence from the first."
In the playing out of a plan which called for the population to be cut down by one-third to one-half, over 300,000 people died, including the execution of King Louis and his family. This was done to insure the stability of the new French Republic. In August, 1792, after the overthrow of the government, the tri-colored banner was replaced by the red flag of social revolution, while the cry of "Vive notre roi d´Orleans" gave way to the Masonic watchword, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!" Those who responded with the proper Masonic handsigns, had their lives spared. By November, 1793, as the massacres had spread all over France, the churches had been reorganized along the lines of Weishaupt's contention that "reason should be the only code of man."
Talleyrand, who became the bishop of Autin in 1788, because of his radical reorganization of the Church, was excommunicated by the Pope. He became a deputy to the National Assembly. The Jacobins controlled the National Assembly, and for all intents and purposes, Mirabeau became France's leader. In true Democratic spirit, he said: "We must flatter the people by gratuitous justice, promise them a great diminution in taxes and a more equal division, more extension in fortunes, and less humiliation. These fantasies will fanaticize the people, who will flatten all resistance." The Revolution was considered at an end on July 28, 1794, when Robespierre was guillotined.
Thomas Jefferson, who served as minister to France for three years (1785-89), described the events as "so beautiful a revolution" and said that he hoped it would sweep the world. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton said that Jefferson helped start the French Revolution, and wrote in a letter to a friend, dated May 26, 1792, that Jefferson "drank freely of the French philosophy, in religion, in science, in politics. He came from France in the moment of fermentation, which he had a share in inciting." Jefferson wrote to Brissot de Warville in Philadelphia, in a letter dated May 8, 1793, that he was "eternally attached to the principles of the French Revolution." In 1987, during a trip to the United States by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife, where they visited the Jefferson Memorial, she referred to Jefferson as "one of the world's greatest thinkers."
It is interesting to note, that during the Communist revolution, Nikolai Lenin said: "We, the Bolsheviks, are the Jacobins of the Twentieth Century..."
An Illuminist, and member of the revolutionary French National Assembly, Vicomte de Barras, witnessed a 24 year old Napoleon repelling a siege at Toulon in 1793 by English and Spanish military forces. Barras, appointed by the Assembly as the Commander-in-Chief of the French military, in 1795 became a member of the five-man Directorate, which began to govern France, and soon became the most powerful political figure in the country. He chose Napoleon to lead the military forces. However, in 1799, Napoleon (a Knights Templar) broke his ties with Barras, because he feared Barras was attempting to restore the Monarchy. Napoleon eliminated the Directorate, and in 1804, with the support of Talleyrand (who served as his foreign minister), became Emperor. Unwittingly, as a puppet of the Illuminati, his reign brought about the total disruption of Europe, which was needed for the Illuminati to get control and unify it. He ended the Holy Roman Empire, and made his brother Joseph, the King of Naples in 1806. Joseph was replaced by Napoleon's brother-in-law Murat, when Joseph became the King of Spain in 1808. His brother Louis was made the King of Holland, and another brother Jerome, the King of Westphalia.
In 1810, Napoleon confiscated the contents of the Vatican archives, which amounted to 3,000 cases of documents, and took it to Paris. Although most were later returned to Rome, some were kept. By this time, Napoleon had changed the face of Europe, but, he settled his warring ways and ultimately the French Revolution had failed, because Europe had not been fully conquered. The Illuminati immediately took steps to dethrone him, which took five years. In order to get money to Wellington's English forces, Nathan Rothschild funneled money to his brother James (who handled financial transactions for the French government), in Paris, who got it to Wellington's troops in Spain. In addition, the Illuminati secretly worked to make agreements that shifted national alliances against France.
Upon his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon was again exiled, this time, to the island of Saint Helena in the south Atlantic, which is where he died in 1821. He had written in his will: "I die before my time, killed by the English oligarchy and its hired assassins."
In 1785, the Columbia Lodge of the Order of the Illuminati was established in New York City. Among its members were Governor DeWitt Clinton, Horace Greeley (politician and editor of the New York Daily Tribune), Charles Dana, and Clinton Roosevelt (the ancestor of Franklin D. Roosevelt). Roosevelt wrote a book called Science of Government Founded on Natural Law, in which he wrote: "There is no God of justice to order things aright on earth, if there be a God, he is a malicious and revengeful being, who created us for misery." He referred to himself and other members as the "enlightened ones," and said that the U.S. Constitution was a "leaky vessel" which was "hastily put together when we left the British flag," and therefore needed revision.
In 1786, a lodge was started in Portsmouth, Virginia, where allegedly, Thomas Jefferson was a member; followed by fourteen others in different cities of the thirteen colonies.
On July 19, 1789, David Pappin, President of Harvard University, issued a warning to the graduating class, concerning the Illuminati's influence on American politics and religion. In April, 1793, France sent new ambassador Edmond Genet to America, so he could collect payment for the American debt incurred during the American Revolution. The money was to be used to finance France's war with England. However, his real reason for being here, was to gain political favor for France, and spread Illuminism, which he did, through the establishment of 'Democratic Clubs.'
Washington said "they would shake the government to its foundations," while John Quincy Adams, oldest son of the 2nd President John Adams, who became our 6th President in 1825, said that these clubs were "so perfectly affiliated with the Parisian Jacobins that their origin from a common parent cannot possibly be mistaken." Because of the Illuminati threat, Washington and Adams lobbied Congress to pass the Alien and Sedition Act, which was "designed to protect the United States from the extensive French Jacobin conspiracy, paid agents of which were even in high places in the government."
In a letter from Adams to Jefferson, dated June 30, 1813, he wrote: "You certainly never felt the terrorism excited by Genet, in 1793 ... when ten thousand people in the streets of Philadelphia, day after day threatened to drag Washington out of his house, and effect a revolution ... nothing but (a miracle) ... could have saved the United States from a fatal revolution of government."
Thomas Paine, author and political theorist, helped the Illuminati infiltrate several Masonic lodges. He revealed his loyalty to them when his book The Age of Reason was published in 1794, which dealt with the role of religion in society. Although he believed in God, he could not accept the entire Bible as being fact.
A second volume was published in 1796. An unofficial third volume (subtitled: Examination of the Prophecies) also appeared, which seriously questioned the deity and existence of Jesus. In 1937, The Times of London referred to him as "the English Voltaire."
On May 9, 1798, Rev. Jedediah Morse, pastor of the Congregational Church in Charleston, South Carolina preached a sermon at the New North Church in Boston, about the Illuminati: "Practically all of the civil and ecclesiastical establishments of Europe have already been shaken to their foundations by this terrible organization; the French Revolution itself is doubtless to be traced to its machinations; the successes of the French armies are to be explained on the same ground. The Jacobins are nothing more nor less than the open manifestation of the hidden system of the Illuminati. The Order has its branches established and its emissaries at work in America. The affiliated Jacobin Societies in America have doubtless had as the object of their establishment the propagation of the principles of the illuminated mother club in France ... I hold it a duty, my brethren, which I owe to God, to the cause of religion, to my country and to you, at this time, to declare to you, thus honestly and faithfully, these truths. My only aim is to awaken you and myself a due attention, at this alarming period, to our dearest interests. As a faithful watchman I would give you warning of your present danger."
Later in July, Timothy Dwight, President of Yale University, told the people of New Haven: "Shall our sons become the disciples of Voltaire (a French writer) and the dragoons of Murat, or our daughters, the concubines of the Illuminati."
To infiltrate the Masonic lodges in Europe, Weishaupt had enlisted the aid of John Robison, who was a long time, high degree Mason in the Scottish Rite, a professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University in Scotland, a British historian, and Secretary-General to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. When he went to Germany, he was given Weishaupt's revised conspiracy plans to study, in order to expand the Illuminati's influence in the British Isles. However, Robison didn't agree with their principles, and after warning American Masons in 1789, published a book to expose the organization in 1798 called Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried On In the Secret Meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies (which presented the Protestant view). He wrote: "I have observed these doctrines gradually diffusing and mixing with all the different systems of Freemasonry till, at last, an association has been formed for the express purpose of rooting out all the religious establishments, and overturning all the existing governments of Europe."
Also, that same year, Abbé Augustin Barruel (French patriot, Jesuit, and 3rd degree Mason) published his Memoires pour servir a l´Histoire du Jacobinisme or Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism (which presented the Roman Catholic view). Both books sought to warn America about the Illuminati conspiracy, but the warnings were not taken seriously. The January, 1798 edition of the Monthly Magazine contained a letter by Augustus Bottiger, Provost of the College of Weimar, who accused Robison of making inaccurate statements, and said that since 1790, "every concern of the Illuminati has ceased."
Thomas Jefferson, believed to be a member of the Virginia lodge of the Illuminati, and a Mason (who helped the Illuminati to infiltrate the New England Masonic lodges), denied all the allegations, and described Weishaupt as "an enthusiastic philanthropist" and called Barruel's revelations "the ravings of a Bedlamite (Bedlam was the name of a hospital in London for the mentally insane)."
During the summer of 1798, Rev. G. W. Snyder, a Lutheran minister, wrote a letter to President Washington and included a copy of Robison's book, expressing his concern about the Illuminati infiltrating the American Masonic lodges. In Washington's response, dated September 25, 1798, he wrote: "I have heard much about the nefarious and dangerous plan and doctrines of the Illuminati," but went on to say that he didn't believe that they had become involved in the lodges. A subsequent letter by Snyder, requesting a more reassuring answer, resulted in a letter from Washington, dated October 24, 1798, which can be found in The Writings of George Washington (volume 20, page 518, which was prepared under the direction of the U.S. George Washington Bicentennial Commission and published by the U.S. Government Printing Office in 1941). He wrote:
"It was not my intention to doubt that the doctrines of the Illuminati and the principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more satisfied of this fact than I am. The idea I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the lodges of Freemasons in this country had, as societies, endeavored to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or pernicious principles of the latter. That individuals of them may have done it, or that the founder or instruments employed to have found the democratic societies in the United States may have had this object, and actually had a separation of the people from their government in view, is too evident to be questioned."
Shortly before his death, Washington issued two more warnings about the Illuminati.
Around 1807, John Quincy Adams (said to have organized the New England Masonic lodges), who later became President in 1825, wrote three letters to Colonel William C. Stone, a top Mason, telling him that Thomas Jefferson, our 3rd President, and founder of the Democratic Party, was using the Masonic lodges for subversive Illuminati purposes. These letters were allegedly kept at the Rittenburg Square Library in Philadelphia, but have mysteriously vanished. Adams also wrote to Washington, saying that Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were misusing Masonic lodges for Illuminati purposes and the worship of Lucifer (which is recorded in the Adams Chronicles).
Benjamin Franklin was also accused of being a member of the Illuminati, but there is no concrete proof of this. Jefferson seemed to be the main focus of everyone's ire. He was accused by the Federalists of being a Jacobin, and an atheist. There is some evidence to indicate that he did use the Democratic Societies and Jacobin Clubs in his 1796 battle with John Adams for the Presidency. The Rev. Jedediah Morse identified Jefferson as "an Illuminatus."
On July 4, 1812, Rev. Joseph Willard, the president of Harvard University, said in a speech in Lancaster, New Hampshire: "There is sufficient evidence that a number of societies, of the Illuminati, have been established in this land of Gospel light and civil liberty, which were first organized from the grand society, in France. They are doubtless secretly striving to undermine all our ancient institutions, civil and sacred. These societies are closely leagued with those of the same Order, in Europe; they have all the same object in view. The enemies of all order are seeking our ruin. Should infidelity generally prevail, our independence would fall of course. Our republican government would be annihilated..."
It has been suggested, that one of the reasons that the British looted and burned Washington in 1812, was to destroy secret documents that would have exposed the treason against the United States, by various people highly placed within the government.
When those advocating a strong central government organized the Federalist Party in 1791, the Anti-Federalists, who favored states' rights, and were against Alexander Hamilton's (Secretary of Treasury under Washington, 1789-1795) fiscal policies, which they felt benefited the wealthy, rallied under Thomas Jefferson, Washington's first Secretary of State (1789-93). They became an organized political party after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, led by New York Governor George Clinton (who was later Vice-President under Jefferson and Madison), Patrick Henry of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts (a signer of the Declaration of Independence). The Anti-Federalists were made up of the low class, farmers, and paper money advocates, who strongly opposed a strong central government as set forth in the U.S. Constitution of 1789, and succeeded in getting the Bill of Rights added. They were against a single, national government, upper class rule, and a weak program for the separation of powers.
The Jeffersonian Republicans, so named because of the anti-monarchy views of the Anti-Federalists, had power from 1801-1825. In 1796, the party split into the Democratic-Republicans, organized by New York State Senator Martin Van Buren (who became our 8th President, 1837-41), who concerned themselves with states' rights, farmers' interests and democratic procedures; and the National Republicans, led by John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster, who merged with the Federalists in 1820. In 1826, the Democratic-Republicans became known as just plain Democrats, while the National Republicans became identified as only Republicans in 1854. That is how the two-party system was created in this country.
THE SECRET SOCIETIES
PHI BETA KAPPA
The fraternity known as Phi-Beta-Kappa was organized in 1776 by students at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia (the second oldest in the country, founded in 1694), as a secret debating club. It was later infiltrated, and used to introduce Illuminati principles to America.
Their name was derived from their Greek password and motto, 'Philosophia Biou Kuberuetes,' which means, 'Philosophy is the Guide of Life.' Open only to university students, their goal was to make philosophy, not religion, the guiding principle of man's actions. They had secret hand signals and handshakes up to 1831, when it was reorganized and changed from a social organization, to an honorary society for upper classmen with high scholastic standing.
During the 1700's, when it looked as through the fraternity would fold, one of its members, Elisha Parmele, received a grant to establish chapters at Yale in 1780 (Yale Professor of History, Gaddis Smith, said: "Yale has influenced the Central Intelligence Agency more than any other university, giving the CIA the atmosphere of a class reunion."), and at Harvard in 1781. They later grew to have chapters on 270 campuses, and with more than 500,000 members.
Among their member have been: Tom Brokaw (NBC commentator), Glenn Close (actress), Francis Ford Coppola (noted film director), Henry Kissinger (U.S. Secretary of State, 1973 to 1977; Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 1969-75), Kris Kristofferson (singer/actor), Dean Rusk (Presidential advisor), Howard K. Smith (ABC commentator), Caspar Weinberger (U.S. Secretary of Defense, 1981-87), John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Nelson Rockefeller, President George H. W. Bush, President Jimmy Carter, President Bill Clinton, President Franklin Roosevelt, President Woodrow Wilson, Gov. Jeb Bush (from Florida), Sen. Joseph Lieberman (from Connecticut), Byron White (Supreme Court Justice), and Elihu Root (Secretary of State, 1905-1909; served in the U.S. Senate, 1909-1915; was president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1910-1925).
To be fair here, I have to say that the inclusion of Phi Beta Kappa is by no means intended to downplay the academic achievements of its thousands of members, or to give the connotation of it being an evil organization. However, its dubious beginnings, and the fact that many people in influential positions have come from their ranks, it certainly is reason enough to take note. But more than that, when you see their membership cross over into other organizations such as the Bilderbergers, Council on Foreign Relations, and Trilateral Commission; then you begin to see it as a possible breeding ground for people who are favorable to the international agenda that is leading to one-world government.
SKULL AND BONES
The Skull and Bones organization was founded at Yale University in 1832 by General William Huntington Russell (who later served in the Connecticut State legislature 1846-47) and Alphonso Taft (U.S. Secretary of War in 1876, Attorney General 1886-87, U.S. Minister to Austria 1882-84, U.S. Ambassador to Russia 1884-85, and the father of former president William Howard Taft); and incorporated in 1856 by Russell and Daniel Colt Gilman, under the name 'The Russell Trust Association.' Russell had visited Germany that year, where he was exposed to the Illuminati, and possibly initiated. He wanted to establish a similar group in America, where their sons could become members of a secret Order that would give them a favored status.
It became a black lodge of Freemasonry. In 1873, some Yale students broke into their headquarters, a windowless building called 'The Tomb' adjacent to the campus, where they discovered their insignia- the skull and bones, along with some real skulls and bones. They wrote in the Yale newspaper, the Iconoclast: "Year-by-year the deadly evil of the Skull and Bones is growing."
The Russell Trust is endowed by $54 million in alumni grants, and it is the alumni who control the group. Antony C. Sutton, a former Economics professor at Stanford University, wrote a four-volume series of books on the group, and revealed the names of 30 influential old-line American families who have contributed to its ranks (some of which can trace their lineage back to the 1600's, when they arrived from England), including Whitney, Lord, Phelps, Wadsworth, Allen, Bundy, Adams, Harriman, Rockefeller, Payne, Davison, and Pratt. Every year, 15 juniors are chosen to be members, and are called 'Knights.' Upon graduation, they are called the 'Patriarchs of the Order.'
Since its inception, over 2500 Yale graduates have been initiated. Its members have assimilated themselves into every area of business and government. Members have included: W. Averell Harriman (governor of New York, and advisor to various Democratic presidents), William P. Bundy (editor of the CFR's journal Foreign Affairs), J. Hugh Liedtke (co-founder of Pennzoil Oil Corp.), John Kerry (U.S. Senator from Massachusetts), David Boren (U.S. Senator from Oklahoma), William Sloane Coffin (President of SANE/FREEZE, Phi Beta Kappa), William F. Buckley (conservative commentator, editor of the National Review magazine), Gifford Pinchot (father of the environmental movement), Potter Stewart (Supreme Court Justice), William H. Taft (27th President), Archibald MacLeish (founder of UNESCO), Harold Stanley (investment banker, founder of Morgan Stanley), Dean Witter, Jr. (investment banker), Henry Luce (head of Time/Life magazines), Henry P. Davison (senior partner of Morgan Guaranty Trust), Alfred Cowles (of Cowles Communications), Richard Ely Danielson (of the Atlantic Monthly magazine), Winston Lord (Chairman of the CFR, Ambassador to China and assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton administration), Russell Wheeler Davenport (of Fortune magazine), McGeorge Bundy (national security advisor for President John Kennedy), John Sherman Cooper (U.S. Senator from Kentucky), John H. Chafee (U.S. Senator from Rhode Island), Henry Stimson (Secretary of State for President Herbert Hoover), Robert A. Lovett (Secretary of Defense for President Harry Truman), George H. W. Bush. (41st President, Bilderberger, CFR and Trilateral Commission member until 1980), and George W. Bush (43rd President).
Nicknamed 'Bonesmen,' these establishment elites have become members of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, and have achieved high level positions in the Administrations of various Presidents, the Congress, and the government, in various capacities. From these positions, they can use their influence to work towards their common goal of one-world government.
Both the Skull and Bones, and Phi Beta Kappa, are indicative of the way the Illuminati functions. They know that if they can grab, control, and mold young minds, then they will have unwitting pawns to do their bidding, and could be called upon to contribute to their efforts. The early history of the Illuminati was nothing more than a seed that was planted. That is why there was a big emphasis on infiltrating educational institutions with their doctrine. As each class graduated through the educational systems of the world, the more people there were to perpetuate their plans. In time, the Illuminati knew they would have enough of the right people, in the right places, for them to secretly further their goals.
CONGRESS OF VIENNA
In 1802, Europe was made up of several hundred states, which were dominated by England, Austria, Russia, Prussia and France, which was the most powerful country. In 1804, when Napoleon Bonaparte took over France, his military exploits had led to the complete control of virtually all of Europe. Even today, France has more land than any other country in western Europe. In 1812, when Napoleon moved against Russia; England, Spain and Portugal were already at war with France. They were later joined by Sweden, Austria; and in 1813, Prussia joined the coalition to end the siege of Europe, and to "assure its future peace by the re-establishment of a just equilibrium of the powers." In 1814, the coalition defeated France, and in March of that year, marched into Paris. France's borders were returned to their original 1792 location, which had been established by the First Peace of Paris, and Napoleon was exiled to Elba, a small island off the Tucson coast of Italy.
After the Napoleonic Wars, the Illuminati thought the world would be tired of fighting, and would accept any solution to have peace. Through the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), the Rothschilds hoped to create a sort of League of Nations.
From September, 1814 to June, 1815, the four powers of the allied coalition, winners of the Napoleonic Wars, met at the Congress of Vienna, along with a large number of rulers and officials representing smaller states. It was the biggest political meeting in European history. Representing England, was Lord Robert Stewart, the 2nd Viscount Castlereagh; France, with Foreign Minister Charles-Maurice Talleyrand de Perigord; Prussia, with King Friedrich Wilhelm III; and Austria, with Emperor Franz II.
Other representatives were: Frederick VI, King of Denmark; Maximilian Joseph, King of Bavaria; Friedrich I, King of Wurttemburg; Napoleon II, King of Rome; Eugene de Beaurharnais, Viceroy of Italy; King Friedrich August I of Saxony; Count Leowenhielm of Sweden; Cardinal Consalvi of the Papal States; Grand Duke Charles of Baden; Elector William of Hesse; Grand Duke George of Hesse-Darmstadt; Karl August, Duke of Weimar; the King of Bohemia; the King of Hungary; and emissaries from Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Holland, and other European States.
The main concern of the Congress was to redistribute conquered territories, create a balance of power, restore the pre-Napoleonic order through King Louis XVIII, return the power to families who were ruling in 1789, and to return the Roman Catholic Church to its former power. Discussion revolved around the creation of a Federation of Europe that would establish a group of independent kingdoms which would be tied together through an administrative governing body that would, among other things, provide military defense. In their plan, Switzerland was made a neutral state that served as a repository for their finances.
In March, 1815, Napoleon left Elba, because the pension promised him by King Louis XVIII was discontinued, and he believed that Austria was preventing his companion, Marie Louise, and his son, the former King of Rome (who became the Duke of Reichstadt in Vienna) from being able to join him. Plus, he was made aware of the growing discontent with the King. Thus Napoleon returned, began the Hundred Days War, and was immediately labeled a "public enemy." The coalition at the Congress put aside their diplomatic business, and joined in the battle.
Shortly before Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, negotiations at the Congress of Vienna were completed, and the treaty was signed on June 9, 1815. The Second Peace of Paris, in November, exiled Napoleon to St. Helena, an island 1,000 miles off the African coast, where he died in 1821. The Russian czar saw through the planned European Federation, recognizing it as an Illuminati ploy, and would not go along with it. On September 26, 1815, the Treaty of Holy Alliance was signed by Alexander I of Russia, Francis II of Austria, and Frederick William III of Prussia, while the allies were negotiating the Second Peace of Paris. The Treaty guaranteed the sovereignty of any monarch who would adhere to Christian principles in the affairs of State. The Treaty made them a "true and indissoluble brotherhood." Alexander claimed he got the idea from a conversation with Castlereagh. Castlereagh later said that the Alliance was a "piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense." Prussia and Austria claimed they went along with it, out of fear of Russian retaliation. Although the Alliance had no influence on matters, it did indicate to other countries that they had banded together against them, and it succeeded in temporarily crushing Europe's growing liberal movement.
Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Klemens Furst von Metternich, the most influential statesman in Europe, and a Rothschild agent, said that the purpose of his idea for a European Federation was only to preserve the social order, and he was convinced that Alexander was insane.
In actuality, the reason for the Congress of Vienna, was for the Illuminati to create a Federation, so they would have complete political control over most of the civilized world. Many of the European governments were in debt to the Rothschilds, so they figured they could use that as a bargaining tool. The Illuminati, in their first attempt, had come terrifyingly close to gaining control of the world. The head of the family, Nathan Rothschild, awaited the day that his family would get revenge by destroying the Czar and his family, which they did in 1917.
In 1916, the Senate Congressional Record (pg. 6781) reproduced a document known as the "Secret Treaty of Verona" which had been signed in November 22, 1822 by Austria (Metternich), France (Chateaubriand), Prussia (Bernstet), and Russia (Nesselrode); and was partially the reason for the establishment of the Monroe Doctrine. Its purpose was to make some changes to the treaty of the Holy Alliance, and Article One stated: "The high contracting powers, being convinced that the system of representative government is equally as incompatible with the monarchical principles as the maxim of the sovereignty of the people with the divine right, engage mutually, in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the system of representative governments, in whatever country it may exist in Europe, and to prevent its being introduced where it is not yet known." Without a doubt, this document represented the intentions of the International bankers as they planned increasing domination over a growing world.
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