"Sufi historian Indries Shah traces the name of the Illuminati back to a verse in the Koran which mentions a shining star..."
     - Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger

See Patar and the Judean Illuminator for ancient Egyptian and Judean connections to the "Illuminati".

"The term 'Illuminati' was used by one early writer, Menendez Pelayo, as early as 1492 and is attributable to a group known as the 'Alumbrados' of Spain. The Alumbrados were said to receive secret knowledge from an unknown higher source, resulting in superior human intelligence. This group was condemned by an edict of the Grand Inquisition in 1623..."
"Some writers claim that a group know as the 'Illuminated Ones' was founded by Joachim of Floris in the eleventh century and taught a primitive, supposedly Christian doctrine of 'poverty and equality'."
     - William T. Still, New World Order

"The sixteenth century saw the rise of a powerful society based upon a secret cult, in the mountains of Afghanistan - the Roshaniya, Illuminated ones."
"The earliest figure named in the history of the cult is one Bayezid Ansari, of Afghanistan, whose family claimed descent from the Ansar - the 'Helpers', who assisted Mohammed after his flight from Mecca nearly fourteen hundred years ago. As a reward for this service, he stated, his ancestors had been granted initiation into the mysteries of the Ishmaelite religion: the secret, inner training which dated from Abraham's rebuilding of the Temple at Mecca, the mystical Hiram."
"Not far from Peshawar, which is now in the north-west of Pakistan, Bayezid set up a small school, where he carefully coached those who had been initiated by him in the knowledge of the supernatural that he claimed. A period of probation was expected from each candidate, during which he would to into periods of concealment or meditation, known as khilwat - silence. During this time he was to receive the illumination which was emanated from the supreme being, who desired a class of perfect men- and women- to carry out the organization and direction of the world."

Merchants and soldiers "contributed lavishly to the chief's upkeep and his most expensive military, political and espionage system." At this stage of success, Bayezid now preached that there was "no after-life of the kind currently believed in: no reward or punishment, only a spirit state which was completely different from earthly life. The spirits, if they belonged to the Order, could continue to enjoy themselves and be earthly powers, acting through living members....Eat, drink and be merry. Gain power, look after yourself. You have no allegiance except to the Order, he told them: and all humanity which cannot identify itself by our secret sign is our lawful prey."

"Forty years after the last religio-military leader of the Afghan Illuminate Ones died, a society of the same name (the Illuminati) came into being in Germany, formed, it is said, by Adam Weishaupt, the young professor of Canon Law at Ingolstadt University. Coincidences of date and beliefs connect these Bavarian Illuminati with the Afghan ones, and also with other cults which called themselves 'Illuminated'."
     - Arkon Daraul, Secret Societies

One of my correspondents has pointed out that in Mary Shelly's novel Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein was also in Ingoldstatdt around 1790 creating his famous monster. "Coincidence...or was there something Mary Shelly was trying to tell us?"

(2) Adam Weishaupt

"Rather than obey the dictates of the real, and adjust himself to his reduced limits, late eighteenth-century man took refuge among phantoms; satisfying his nostalgia with the marvels offered by impostors and necromancers, he fled matter and denied its existence....A whole culture was collapsing."
     - A. Viatte, Les Sources occultes du Romantisme: Illuminisme-Theosophie 1770-1820

Adam Weishaupt "adopted the teachings of radical French philosophers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and the anti-Christian doctrines of the Manicheans. He was indoctrinated in Egyptian occultism in 1771 by a merchant of unknown origin named Kolmer, who was said to have traveled Europe in search of converts."
     - William T. Still, New World Order

"Brilliant and well trained by the Jesuits in the conspiratorial methods of access to power, young Weishaupt decided to organize a body of conspirators, determined to free the world from the Jesuitical rule of Rome and help humanity back to the pristine Christian faith of the hermetic martyrs. He is reputed to have been initiated by a German merchant named Kolmer, he had spent many years in Egypt, into a secret doctrine based on Manichaeism. Mayday of 1776, Weishaupt founded his own sect of the Very Perfectibles - better known as the Illuminati - with five original members, self-described as reformist libertarians, partisans of absolute equality."
     - Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks

"Adam Weishaupt, Professor of Canon Law at the University of Ingolstadt, conceived the idea of founding an order which, by mutual helpfulness, counsel, and philosophic discussions, would increase morality and virtue, lay the foundation for the reformation of the world, and oppose the progress of evil, all of which objectives were expressed in the name, 'Order of Perfectibilists' or 'Perfectionists', which was soon changed to 'Illuminati', which is best translated as 'intellectually inspired'. Modesty and humility seems to have been no trait of Weishaupt, for he was one of the first to attempt to fly with little knowledge of human aerodynamics. His ambition outweighed his judgement; his ideals were too refined for a rude world. Like many other promoters, Weishaupt sought the aid of Freemasonry to give his machine both propulsion and ballast. But it dragged Freemasonry down without helping Illuminism very much. He was too shrewd and subtle for his own good, though such qualities gave him headway for a time. Although he formerly belonged to the Jesuits, he secured admission to a lodge of Freemasons in 1777. Ironically, that was named 'Lodge of Caution'."

"We are not informed as to just how Weishaupt became associated with Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwid Baron Von Knigge, for the latter lived in North Germany, was of the nobility, and, after his initiation in 1773, showed little interest in Freemasonry. But noblemen were found in abundance in the most fraudulent orders in Germany claiming some Masonic connections. Weishaupt, in 1780, dispatched the Marquis de Costanzo to propagate Illuminism in the north and Knigge probably then first showed interest in the society. He became more and more enthusiastic as the plan was revealed to him, and, in 1781, accepted the invitation to visit Bavaria and receive full access to all of Weishaupt's materials. Knigge not only completed the scale of degrees but became a proponent of them, bringing to his aid the assistance of Johann J. C. Bode, a prominent German Mason. The order was at first very popular and attracted, it is said, some of the best men in Germany and some of the worst. It had 2000 names on its rolls and spread to France, Belgium, Holland, Denamrk, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, and Italy."
     - Henry Wilson Coil, Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia, 1961

"Unable in Catholic Bavaria to achieve this utopian goal by direct means, Weishaupt determined to work from within an existing organization: the Masonic order....By 1779, there were 54 members of the Illuminati, mostly young noblemen and clergymen, established in four Bavarian cities. Thereafter, with the help of a Masonic bookseller, Johann Bode, the order branched out through Southern Germany and Austria, and down into France and Northern Italy, intellectuals, such as Goethe, Schiller, Mozart, and Herder were attracted."
     - Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks

"Knigge, especially, was a highly religious and intellectual man and would have had nothing to do with that or any other order which was anti-Christian, yet, the vicious attacks and accusations by Baruel and Robison had great influence, and it was even charged that the Illuminati were themselves agents of the Jesuits, though the latter were opposing it in their usual secret manner. The Illuminati were extremely secretive, even identifying themselves and their chapters by assumed classical names; for examples, Weishaupt was Spartacus, Knigge was Philo, Ingolstadt, the headquarters, was Eleusis, Austria was Egypt, etc. Dates were given in a sort of cryptography."
     - Henry Wilson Coil, Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia, 1961

Thomas Jefferson "strenuously defended the Illuminati, and described Weishaupt as 'an enthusiastic philanthropist'."
     - William T. Still, New World Order

"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."
     - Thomas Jefferson

"The Illuminati were finally beset by both internal and external disorders, for Weishaupt found fault with some of Knigge's ritualistic work and peremptorily ordered it changed, whereupon, Knigge became disgusted and resigned in 1784. The Jesuits had fought it from the first and eventually all priests became its active enemies and raised so much opposition that the Elector of Bavaria supressed the Order by edict, June 22, 1784, many Illuminati being imprisoned and some, including Weishaupt, being forced to flee the country. Though the first edict had been obeyed, it was repeated in March and August, 1785. Not only Illuminism, but Freemasonry was exterminated in Bavaria and neither ever recovered its former position. The Illuminati seem to have completely disappeared everywhere by the end of the 18th century."
     - Henry Wilson Coil, Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia, 1961

"The suppression of the Illuminati of Bavaria in 1785 created a tremendous furor whose echoes reached as far as New England, drawing George Washington out in support of the suspect American Freemasons. In fact the Illuminati proved to be the unwilling occasion for the birth of modern conspiracy theory. Wildly exaggerated accounts of their supposed wickedness and of the imminent peril which they represented for society were published in a great epidemic of pamphlets. Their secrecy, their insistence on recruitment of important civil servants, their concealment of the true aims of the society from all but a few highly placed initiates, combined to make them into the bogeymen not only of the German conservatives but of a wider European public. Four years later, when the French Revolution broke out, the mythical beliefs about the Illuminati of Bavaria were incorporated in a vaster and wilder conspiracy theory, which found room also for the Templars."
     - Peter Partner, The Murdered Magicians

"What is today called the conspiracy theory was born in the flood tide of books, pamphlets, and articles denouncing the Illuminati and linking them to an ever-lengthening list of other supposed plotters. The scope of the accusations is reflected in the title of one anti-Illuminati book, published in 1797: Proofs of a Conspiracy against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried On in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and reading Societies, Collected from Good Authorities....The 170-year-old Proofs of a Conspiracy was reissued in 1967 by the John Birch Society, which apparently considered the Illuminati a clear and present danger."
     - Ancient Wisdom and Secret Sects

(3) Rites of the Illuminati

"The aristocratic mumbo-jumbo of the Templar lodges pandered to the confused conservatism of the German nobles and ad a great deal in common with the mumbo-jumbo of the Rosicrucians, to whose ideas the Illuminati were absolutely opposed. The Bavarian Illuminati were an austere emanation of the spirit of the German Professorate, inspired by a consciously bourgeois program, irreligious and radical."
     - Peter Partner, The Murdered Magicians

"The ceremonies were divided into three principal classes and those into degrees as follows:

I- The Nursery
1. Preparatory Literary Essay
2. Novitiate
3. Minerval
4. Minor Illuminatus
5. Magistratus

II- Symbolic Freemasonry
1. Apprentice
2. Fellow Craft
3. Master
4.(a) Scots Major Illuminatus
..(b) Scots Illuminatus Dirigens (Directory)

III- Mysteries
1. Lesser
      (a) Presbyter, Priest, or Epopt
      (b) Prince or Regent
2. Greater
      (a) Magus
      (b) Rex or King (some of these latter degrees were never completed)"

"Status as a Mason was not required for initiation into the Order of Illuminati since the fourth, fifth and sixth degrees of Weishaupt and Baron Von Knogge'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."
     - Jeff_Jorczak@vos.stratus.com

"Openly political and antimonarchial, Weishaupt's 'Illuminati' formed another channel of 'higher degrees' for Freemasons to graduate into after completing the Blue Degrees. Weishaupt's 'Illuminati' had its own 'hidden master' known as the 'Ancient Scot Superior'.
     - William Bramley, The Gods of Eden

"In the lower ranks - the 'nursery' - the member was very much in the dark as to the way in which the Order was run, and how it should accomplish its design of freeing the world. As he progressed, however, he found that a part of his service to the Society was to gain financial and social power, and to place them at the disposal of the group. He was expected to be a diligent Mason, and to try to gain control over Masonic funds. It was not until the tenth rite of promotion had been completed that the member was given - with the grade of Priest - certain definite knowledge. This included the fact that the Illuminati were proposing to destroy princes and prelates throughout the world, and were to remove forever the feeling of local nationality from the minds of men. The ways in which this was to be done involved infiltrating high positions in education, administration and the Press.
"The very highest degrees showed that the rationalism and materialism of the thinkers who developed it were determined to stamp out belief in religion. God and any faith in a deity, the initiate was told, were human inventions, and had no real meaning. Subsequently this was developed further, and the member who arrived at the highest position (that of Rex, King) learned that he was now equal to a king, and that all men were capable of equal advancement; hence the need for kings over ordinary mortals was an illusion."
     - Arkon Daraul, Secret Societies

Revenge of the Templars?

"After their recent exposures in Bavaria, The Illuminati had been driven even further underground, taking on a variety of names, such as The French Revolutionary Club. As radicals flocked into these new varieties of Illuminism, a larger meeting hall was needed. The Hall of the Jacobins Convent was leased, and it was from this hall that they eventually derived their new name, the Jacobin Club.
"The Jacobin Club met in secret and eventually boasted of having some of the best-educated and most influential men in France among its 1,300 members. The Jacobins vowed to destroy the monarchy, as well as other existing institutions, and sought to establish what they called a 'New World Order', or 'Universal Republic'."

"The famous magician and occultist, Cagliostro, was initiated into the Illuminati in 1783. Many years later, he told Catholic priests about his initiation. The initiation took place in an underground room near Frankfort, Germany."
     - William T. Still, New World Order

"An iron box filled with papers was opened. The introducers took from it a manuscript book [which] on the first page...read: 'We, Grand Masters of the Templars...'then followed a form of oath, traced in blood. The book stated that Illuminism was a conspiracy directed against thrones and altars, and that the first blows were to attain France, that after the fall of the French Monarchy, Rome must be attacked."
"By March, 1789, the 266 lodges controlled by the [French] Grand Orient were all 'illuminized' without knowing it, for the Freemasons in general, were not told the name of the sect that brought them these mysteries, and only a very small number were really initiated into the secret....In the following month the Revolution broke out."
     - Cagliostro (Nesta H. Wesbster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements}

"Cagliostro was the Agent of the Templars, and therefore wrote to the Freemasons of London that the time had come to begin the work of re-building the Temple of the Eternal. He had introduced into Masonry a new Rite called the Egyptian, and endeavored to resuscitate the mysterious worship of Isis. The three letters 'l. P. D.' on his seal, were the initials of the words 'Lilia pedibus destrue', 'tread under foot the Lilies [of France]', and a Masonic medal of the sixteenth or seventeenth century has upon it a sword cutting off the stalk of a lily, and the words 'talem dabit ultio messem', 'such harvest revenge will give'."
     - General Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma

"In his Mémoires pour servir æ l'histoire du Jacobinisme published in three volumes from 1797 to 1798, Barruel [a Jesuit scholar] derived all evils from Mani and the Manicheans and demonstrated the existence of a continuous historical conspiracy."
     - Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

"In the minds of Barruel and Cadet de Gassicourt [Le Tombeau de Jacques de Molay] there was in invincible belief in a continuous historical conspiracy, through which anarchist beliefs had passed from the medieval heretics in the west and the Assassins in the east to the Templars and thence through the four Templar lodges which were set up after the death of Jacques de Molay in 1314."
     - Peter Partner, The Murdered Magicians - The Templars and their Myth

"All revolutionaries and murderers since then had been part of a single 'Templar' society - including Cromwell, the murderer of Henry IV of France, conspirators in Portugal, Brazil and Sweden, and of course Robespierre and Danton."
     - Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

Eliphas Levi claimed that the French Revolution represented the Templars' revenge for the persecution they had suffered in the thirteenth century."
     - David Conway, Ritual Magic

"A Lodge inaugurated under the auspices of Rousseau, the fanatic of Geneva became the center of the revolutionary movement in France, and a Prince of the blood-royal went thither to swear the destruction of the successors of Phillipe le Bel on the tomb Jacques de Molai. The registers of the Order of Templars attest that the Regent, the Duc d'Orleans, was Grand Master of that formidable Secret Society, and that his successors were the Duc de Maine, the Prince of Bourbon-Condé and the Duc de Crossé-Brissace."
"It was impossible to unfold to the people the conspiracy of the Templars against the Thrones and the Tiara...[To do so] would have been to initiate the multitude into the secrets of the Masters, and to have uplifted the veil of Isis."
"When Louis XVI was executed, half the work was done; and thenceforth the Army of the Temple was to direct all its efforts against the Pope."
     - General Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma

(2) The Reign of Terror

"In the spring and summer of 1789, an artificial shortage of grain was created by Illuminist manipulations of the grain market. This produced a famine so intense that it brought the nation to the edge of revolt. One of the leading figures in this scheme was the Duc d'Orleans, the grand Master of the grand Orient lodges. The Illuminatists claimed that their revolution would be 'for the benefit of the bourgeoisie with the people as instruments...' but in reality the conspirators held up the food supplies and blocked all reforms in the National Assembly to exacerbate the situation, and the populace starved.
"By July 14, the Bastille was stormed, from which a grand total of only seven prisoners were 'liberated'. Even French historians now acknowledge that the purpose of the revolutionaries was not to destroy the Bastille or liberate the prisoners, but to steal arms and gunpowder. Thus armed, on July 22, 1789, the Jacobins set into motion one of the most elaborately timed revolutionary exercises ever attempted. It would later be known as 'The great Fear'.
"A panic was created simultaneously around the nation. Horsemen rode from town to town telling the citizens that 'brigands' were approaching and that everyone should take up arms. Citizens were instructed that the conspirators were being harbored in the larger estates, the chateaux, and that by edict of the King all should be torched. The people, obedient to their monarch, complied. Soon, the flames of destruction were soon burning out of control. Anarchy continued to grow as citizens began raiding and pillaging - and not only for food."
     - William T. Still, New World Order

With the overthrow of the monarchy in 1792, "from the 10th of August onwards, we find the tricolor replaced by the red flag of the social revolution, whilst the cry of 'Vive notre roi d'Orleans!' gives way to the masonic watchword 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."
     - Nesta H. Wesbster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements

"Terror was rampant in the streets of Paris....In November 1793 a campaign against religion was inaugurated by a massacre of the priests all over France. In the cemeteries the cherished motto of the Illuminati, 'Death is an eternal sleep', was posted by the order of the Illuminatus 'Anaxagoras' Chaumette. In the churches of Paris, Feasts of Reason were celebrated where women of easy morals were enthroned as goddesses. These were also known as 'Exoterion', and were modeled on Weishaupt's plan to honor the god of Love."
"In 1791, after returning to the United States from a three-year stint as minister to France, he [Thomas Jefferson] described the carnage as 'so beautiful a revolution' and stated that he hoped it would sweep the world. He claimed to believe that 'most Frenchmen were Jacobins. Their excesses, if one called them such, reflected that national will."
"By 1793, much of France lay in ruin. Industries were decimated, libraries burned, the bourgeoisie all but wiped out. Even the great chemist Lavoisier had been guillotined on the excuse that 'the Republic has no need of chemists'."

"Toward the end of 1793, the new revolutionary Republic found itself faced with hundreds of thousands of working men for whom it could not find employment. The revolutionary leaders embarked upon a fearful new project that was to be copied by tyrants ever after, called 'depopulation'.
"The idea was to reduce France's population of twenty-five million down to either eight or sixteen million, depending on which source you believe. Maximilien Robespierre believed depopulation to be 'indispensable'."
     - William T. Still, New World Order

"The system of the Terror was thus the answer to the problem of unemployment - unemployment brought about on a vast scale by the destruction of the luxury trades."
     - Nesta H. Wesbster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements

"In France members of the revolutionary committees in charge of the extermination toiled day and night over maps, calculating just how many heads must be sacrificed in each town. Fearful Revolutionary Tribunals tried to determine who would be killed, and a never-ending stream of victims marched to a variety of deaths. In Nantes, 500 children were killed in one butchery, and 144 poor women who sewed shirts for the army were thrown into the river."
"...Estimates of the final death toll at the time ran around 300,000."
     - William T. Still, New World Order

"I have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam & Eve left in every country, & left free, it would be better than it now is...The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest."
     - Thomas Jefferson

Hyperlinks

·John Dee