" ..the Masonic Cyclopædia observes that the Illuminati “ were, as a rule, men of the strictest morality and humanity, and the ideas they sought to instil were those which have found universal acceptance in our own times.”  Preston, in his Illustrations of Masonry, also does his best to gloss over the faults of the Order, and even “ the historian of Freemasonry ” devotes to its founder this astounding apology...One can only conclude that these extraordinary exonerations of an Order bitterly hostile to the true aims of Masonry proceed from ignorance of the real nature of Illuminism.  In order to judge of this it is only necessary to consult the writings of the Illuminati themselves, which are contained in the following works : 1.  Einige Originalschriften des Illuminatenordens (Munich, 1787). 2.  Nachtrag von weitern Originalschriften, etc. (Munich, 1787). 3.  Die neuesten Arbeiten des Spartacus und Philo in dem Illuminaten-Orden (Munich, 1794)...All these consist in the correspondence and papers of the Order which were seized by the Bavarian Government...The authenticity of these documents has never been denied even by the Illuminati themselves...we shall now see from the evidence of their own writings, how far the Illuminati can be regarded as a praiseworthy and cruelly maligned Order.  Let us begin with their attitude towards Freemasonry...From the moment of Weishaupt’s admission into Freemasonry his whole conduct was a violation of the Masonic code...Weishaupt shows himself not only an intriguer but a charlatan, inventing mysteries and degrees to impose on the credulity of his followers...whilst (Weishaupt was) heartily despising Freemasonry, theosophy, Rosicrucianism, and mysticism of every kind, his (Weishaupt's) association with Philo leads him to perceive the utility of all these as a bait...The perfidy of the Illuminati with regard to the Freemasons is... apparent.  Even Mounier, who set out to refute Barruel on the strength of the information supplied to him by the Illuminatus Bode, admits their duplicity in this respect...(Webster quotes source) 'it was resolved to profit by Freemasonry whilst profoundly despising it.  They decided that the degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, Master Mason, and Scotch Knight should be added to those of the Illuminati, and that they would boast of possessing exclusively the real secrets of the Freemasons and affirm that Illuminism was the real primitive Freemasonry'..."The papers of the Order seized in Bavaria and published,” Mounier says again, show that “ the Illuminati employed the forms of Freemasonry, but that they considered it in itself, apart from their own degrees, as a puerile absurdity and that they detested the Rose-Croix.”...Why in the face of all this should any British Masons take up the cudgels for the Illuminati and vilify Robison and Barruel for exposing them?  The American Mackey, as a consistent Freemason, shows scant sympathy for this traitor in the masonic camp.  “ Weishaupt,” he writes, “ was a radical in politics and an infidel in religion, and he organized this association, not more for the purpose of aggrandizing himself, than of overturning Christianity and the institutions of society.” The truth is that Weishaupt was one of the greatest enemies of British Freemasonry who ever lived, and genuine Freemasons will do themselves no good by defending him or his abominable system...Of course on their face value the Illuminati appear wholly admirable...this is the mere stock-in-trade of the secret society leader as of the fraudulent company promoter, to whom the first essentials are a glowing prospectus and a long list of highly respectable patrons who know nothing whatever about the inner workings of the concern.  These methods, pursued as early as the ninth century by Abdullah ibn Maymun, enter largely into the policy of Frederick the Great, Voltaire, and his “ brothers ” in philosophy—or in Freemasonry....Weishaupt is careful in general to exhibit the face of a benign philosopher and even of a Christian evangelist ;  it is only at moments that he drops the mask and reveals the grinning satyr behind it. Accordingly in the published statutes of the Illuminati no hint of subversive intentions will be found ;  indeed the “ Obligation ” expressly states that “ nothing against the State, religion, or morals is undertaken.”...Yet what is Weishaupt’s real political theory ?  No other than that of modern Anarchy, that man should govern himself and rulers should be gradually done away with....(according to Weishaupt) men must learn not only to be independent of kings but of each other ...whilst the ancient religions taught the hope of a Redeemer who should restore man to his former state, Weishaupt looks to man alone for his restoration....(quotes Weishaupt): "These means (for man's spiritual & governmental salvation) are secret schools of wisdom... through them will Man be saved from his Fall, princes and nations will disappear without violence from the earth, the human race will become one family and the world the abode of reasonable men...Reason will be the only code of Man"...But whilst completely eliminating any idea of divine power outside Man and framing his system on purely political lines, Weishaupt is careful not to shock the susceptibilities of his followers by any open repudiation of Christian doctrines...But one must study Weishaupt’s writings as a whole to apprehend the true measure of his belief in Christ’s teaching...we find him (Weishaupt) adopting the old ruse of representing Christ as a Communist and as a secret-society adept...But this secret doctrine is only to be apprehended by initiates. Weishaupt thus contrives to give a purely political interpretation to Christ’s teaching ...(quotes Weishaupt:) "The mission of Christ was therefore by means of Reason to make men capable of freedom...When at last reason becomes the religion of man, so will the problem be solved...in the way in which I explain Christianity no one need be ashamed to be a Christian, for I leave the name and substitute for it Reason...Had not the noble and elect remained in the background ... new depravity would have broken out in the human race, and through Regents, Priests, and Freemasons Reason would have been banished from the earth.”...In Weishaupt’s masonic system, therefore, the designs of the Order with regard to religion are not confided to the mere Freemasons, but only to the Illuminati.  ...We must consider [says Weishaupt], how we can begin to work under another form.  If only the aim is achieved, it does not matter under what cover it takes place, and a cover is always necessary.  For in concealment lies a great part of our strength.  For this reason we must always cover ourselves with the name of another society.  The lodges that are under Freemasonry are in the meantime the most suitable cloak for our high purpose...As in the spiritual Orders of the Roman Church, religion was, alas ! only a pretence, so must our Order also in a nobler way try to conceal itself behind a learned society or something of the kind. . . . A society concealed in this manner cannot be worked against....We shall be shrouded in impenetrable darkness from spies and emissaries of other societies.^...Thus, as in the case of Abdullah ibn Maymun’s society,  the extraordinary result was brought about that a multitude of men of divers beliefs were all working together for an object known only to a few of them.”...We have now seen enough of the aims and methods of the Illuminati and the true characters of their leaders from their own admissions.  To make the case complete it would be necessary also to give a résumé of the confessions made by the ex-Illuminati, the four professors Cosandey, Grünberger, Utzschneider, and Renner, as also of the further published works of the Illuminati—but space and time forbid.  What is needed is a complete book on the subject, consisting of translations of the most important passages in all the contemporary German publications. From the extracts given above, can it, however, be seriously contended that Barruel or Robison exaggerated the guilt of the Order?...Even those contemporaries, Mounier and the member of the Illuminati who set out to refute Barruel and Lombard de Langres, merely provide further confirmation of their views.  Thus Mounier is obliged to confess that the real design of Illuminism was “ to undermine all civil order,” and “ Ancien Illumines ” asserts in language no less forcible than Barruel’s own that Weishaupt “ made a code of Machiavellism,” that his method was “ a profound perversity, flattering everything that was base and rancorous in human nature in order to arrive at his ends,” that he was not inspired by “ a wise spirit of reform ” but by a “ fanatical enmity inimical to all authority on earth.”  The only essential points on which the opposing parties differ is that whilst Mounier and “ Ancien Illumine ” deny the influence of the Illuminati on the French Revolution and maintain that they ceased to exist in 1786, Barruel and Lombard de Langres present them as the inspirers of the Jacobins and declare them to be still active after the Revolution had ended.  That on this point, at any rate, the latter were right, we shall see in a further chapter....the source of inspiration from which Weishaupt subsequently drew his anarchic philosophy still remains obscure...there is between the ideas of Weishaupt and of Lessing’s “ Falk ” a distinct resemblance ;  both in the writings of the Illuminati and in Lessing’s Dialogues we find the same vein of irony with regard to Freemasonry, the same design that it should be replaced by a more effectual system,  the same denunciations of the existing social order and of bourgeois society, the same theory that “ men should be self-governing,” the same plan of obliterating all distinctions between nations, even the same simile of the bee-hive as applied to human life which, as I have shown elsewhere, was later on adopted by the anarchist Proudhon....But Lessing was also the friend and admirer of (orthodox Jew) Moses Mendelssohn, who has been suggested as one of Weishaupt’s inspirers...To sum up, I do not so far see in Illuminism a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Christianity, but rather a movement finding its principal dynamic force in the ancient spirit of revolt against the existing social and moral order, aided and abetted perhaps by Jews who saw in it a system that might be turned to their own advantage. ...Weishaupt so admirably understood...how to take from every association, past and present, the portions he required and to weld them all into a working system of terrible efficiency...the methods of the Ismailis and the Assassins...the organization and secrecy of the Freemasons, the philosophy of Machiavelli...he knew moreover, how to enlist the right elements in all existing associations as well as isolated individuals and turn them to his purpose.  So in the army of the Illuminati we find men of every shade of thought...all these differing in their aims yet by Weishaupt’s admirable system of watertight compartments precluded from a knowledge of these differences and all marching, unconsciously or not, towards the same goal. Although this was not the invention of Weishaupt but had been foreshadowed many centuries earlier in the East, it was Weishaupt, so far as we know, who reduced it to a working system for the West—a system which has been adhered to by succeeding groups of world-revolutionaries up to the present day.  It is for this reason that I have quoted at length the writings of the Illuminati—all the ruses, all the hypocrisy, all the subtle methods of camouflage which characterized the Order will be found again in the insidious propaganda both of the modern secret societies and the open revolutionary organizations whose object is to subvert all order, all morality, and all religion. I maintain, therefore, with greater conviction than ever the importance of Illuminism in the history of world-revolution.  But for this co-ordination of methods the philosophers and Encyclopædists might have gone on for ever inveighing against thrones and altars, the Martinistes evoking spirits, the magicians weaving spells, the Freemasons declaiming on universal brotherhood—none of these would have “ armed the hand ” and driven the infuriated mobs into the streets of Paris ;  it was not until the emissaries of Weishaupt formed an alliance with the Orléaniste leaders that vague subversive theory became active revolution... "