[Illuminati 666 Book 2 Pdf Download
Eliora Shopbell
Secret papers seized by the Bavarian authorities revealed fascinating details about the rituals of the Illuminati. A novice preparing to pass to the higher level of minerval, for example, had to present a detailed report on the titles of the books he owned, the identity of his enemies, and the weak points of his character. Upon initiation as a minerval, he promised to sacrifice all personal interests to those of the society.
After the French Revolution began in 1789, the Illuminati were accused of desiring a similar revolt against the Bavarian regime. Some even claimed that Weishaupt had met the French revolutionary leader Robespierre. In reality, Weishaupt was more of a reformer than a firebrand revolutionary.
Third Class
The highest degree of philosophical illumination. Its members were priests who instructed lower-degree members. The lower orders of this class were themselves under the authority of a king.
Weishaupt was born of Westphalian parents at Ingolstadt (Bavaria), on 6 February, 1748, and lost his father in 1753. Although educated at a Jesuit school, he fell early under the influence of his free-thinking godfather, the director of the high-school of Ickstatt, to whom he owed his appointment as professor of civil law at the University of Ingolstadt in 1772. He was the first layman to occupy the chair of canon law at this university (1773), but, in consequence of the growing rationalistic influence which he exerted over the students both in his academic capacity and in his personal intercourse with them, he came into ever sharper collision with the loyal adherents of the Church and with those who were influential in government circles. As, furthermore, his obstinate nature led him to quarrel with almost everyone with whom his intercourse was at all prolonged, he felt the need of a powerful secret organization to support him in the conflict with his adversaries and in the execution of his rationalistic schemes along ecclesiastical and political lines. At first (1774) he aimed at an arrangement with the Freemasons. Closer inquiry, however, destroyed his high estimate of this organization, and he resolved to found a new society which, surrounded with the greatest possible secrecy, would enable him most effectually to realize his aims and could at all times be precisely adapted to the needs of the age and local conditions.
His order was to be based entirely on human nature and observation; hence its degrees, ceremonies, and statutes were to be developed only gradually; then, in the light of experience and wider knowledge, and with the co-operation of all the members, they were to be steadily improved. For his prototype he relied mainly on Freemasonry, in accordance with which he modelled the degrees and ceremonial of his order. After the pattern of the Society of Jesus, though distorting to the point of caricature its essential features, he built up the strictly hierarchical organization of his society. "To utilize for good purposes the very means which that order employed for evil ends", such was, according to Philo (Endl. Erkl., 60 sq.), "his pet design". For the realization of his plans, he regarded as essential the "despotism of superiors" and the "blind, unconditional obedience of subordinates" (ibid.), along with the utmost secrecy and mysteriousness. At the beginning of 1777 he entered a Masonic Lodge and endeavoured, with other members of the order, to render Freemasonry as subservient as possible to his aims. As Weishaupt, however, despite all his activity as an agitator and the theoretic shrewdness he displayed, was at bottom only an unpractical bookworm, without the necessary experience of the world, his order for a long time made no headway. The accession to it, in 1780, of the Masonic agent Freiherr von Knigge (Philo), a man of wide experience and well known everywhere in Masonic circles, gave matters a decisive turn. In company with Weishaupt, who, as a philosopher and jurist, evolved the ideas and main lines of the constitution, Knigge began to elaborate rapidly the necessary degrees and statutes (until 1780 the Minerval degree was the only one in use), and at the same time worked vigorously to extend the order, for which within two years he secured 500 members. When the great international convention of Freemasons was held at Wilhelmsbad (16 July to 29 August, 1782) the "Illuminated Freemasonry", which Knigge and Weishaupt now proclaimed to be the only "pure" Freemasonry, had already gained such a reputation that almost all the members of the convention clamoured for admission into the new institution. Particularly valuable for the order was the accession of Bode (Amelius), who commanded the highest respect in all Masonic circles. Assisted by Bode, Knigge laboured diligently to convert the whole Masonic body into "Illuminated Freemasons". A number of the most prominent representatives of Freemasonry and "enlightenment" became Illuminati, including, in 1783, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, the foremost leader of European Freemasonry and the princely representative of the illuminism of his age. Other famous members were Goethe, Herder, and Nicolai. The order was also propagated in Sweden, Russia, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Austria, and France. But in 1783 dissensions arose between Knigge and Weishaupt, which resulted in the final withdrawal of the former on 1 July, 1784. Knigge could no longer endure Weishaupt's pedantic domineering, which frequently assumed offensive forms. He accused Weishaupt of "Jesuitism", and suspected him of being "a Jesuit in disguise" (Nachtr., I, 129). "And was I", he adds, "to labour under his banner for mankind, to lead men under the yoke of so stiff-necked a fellow?--Never!"
Moreover, in 1783 the anarchistic tendencies of the order provoked public denunciations which led, in 1784, to interference on the part of the Bavarian Government. As the activity of the Illuminati still continued, four successive enactments were issued against them (22 June, 1784; 2 March, and 16 August, 1785; and 16 August, 1787), in the last of which recruiting for the order was forbidden under penalty of death. These measures put an end to the corporate existence of the order in Bavaria, and, as a result of the publication, in 1786, of its degrees and of other documents concerning it--for the most part of a rather compromising nature--its further extension outside Bavaria became impossible. The spread of the spirit of the Illuminati, which coincided substantially with the general teachings of the "enlightenment", especially that of France, was rather accelerated than retarded by the persecution in Bavaria. In two letters addressed to the Bishop of Freising (18 June and 12 November, 1785) Pius VI had also condemned the order. As early as 16 February, 1785, Weishaupt had fled from Ingolstadt, and in 1787 he settled at Gotha. His numerous apologetic writings failed to exonerate either the order or himself. Being now the head of a numerous family, his views on religious and political matters grew more sober. After 1787 he renounced all active connexion with secret societies, and again drew near to the Church, displaying remarkable zeal in the building of the Catholic church at Gotha. he died on 18 November, 1830, "reconciled with the Catholic Church, which, as a youthful professor, he had doomed to death and destruction"--as the chronicle of the Catholic parish in Gotha relates.
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