To begin, a brief overview.
The Bavarian Illuminati was a secret society founded in 1776 in Bavaria, in what is now Germany, by Adam Weishaupt, a young professor of canon law at the University of Ingolstadt who had been educated by the Jesuits, although he came to detest them (The Secret School of Wisdom, pp. 14 and 17). It was a movement of free, republican-minded thinkers, and of all the groups that have carried the name “Illuminati” it is by far the best known. Its members hoped to put a religion of reason in the place of Christianity, and to spread rational thought, the ideals of the Enlightenment and the vision of a “universal moral society”.
Weishaupt’s Order of the Illuminati has since swollen to mythical proportions in the minds of excitable keyboard warriors the world over. In the Germany of his day, change could not come quickly enough. The country did not yet exist as a single nation: it was a patchwork of small city-states, duchies and principalities, each with its own ruler, its own laws and its own customs.
Weishaupt was born in Ingolstadt, in the Electorate of Bavaria, on 6 February 1748. Orphaned while still young, he was brought up by a learned uncle, who sent him to a Jesuit school. On 1 May 1776, together with a few of his most able students, he founded the order in Ingolstadt under the name “Bund der Perfektibilisten”.
The society did not last long. In 1785 the Bavarian government suppressed it, and by 1788, twelve years after its founding, all of its activity had ceased (The Secret School of Wisdom, p. 13). The suppression came after a campaign driven by the Catholic Church and the conservative nobility. The ban belonged to a wider political reaction, in Bavaria and across Europe, that set out to limit the reach of the Enlightenment and to protect the established social and political order.
Accounts of Weishaupt’s own beliefs pull in opposite directions. Some describe him as a sincere Christian with no interest in the occult. Others claim that he saw Yahweh, the God of the Bible, as evil and Satan as good, crediting Satan with giving humanity enlightenment while God tried to keep it imprisoned. Neither claim rests on reliable historical records, so both deserve a healthy dose of scepticism. They are simply two examples of how widely the conspiratorial guesswork about the order ranges.
The Illuminati panic crossed the Atlantic too. In the United States, some Federalist and Congregationalist clergy tried to convince their congregations and the country’s politicians that a ring of European atheists had engineered the French Revolution and meant to bring down religion and government in America next. That scare is the root of conspiracy theories still in circulation today. They are kept alive by conspiracy groups and cults such as the “Q” movement and its “QAnon” followers, and by a string of authors whose books have done a great deal to pour the fuel of ignorance over the fire of stupidity. Among them are “Proofs of a Conspiracy: Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe”, “Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism” and the lie that will not die, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, all covered in more detail further down this page. They are named here not to spread them further, but so that readers can see where these theories, and the runaway imaginations behind them, came from. Built on nothing but nonsense, superstition and ignorance, they have done real damage to society and to fraternal organisations, the Bavarian Illuminati among them.
It is worth stressing that the Bavarian Illuminati was outlawed in 1785, when the Bavarian government under Elector Karl Theodor banned every secret society, the Illuminati included, and that by 1788 the order had ceased all activity, for fear that they would upset the social and political order. Yet long after the original order had gone, its name, and the notion of a hidden circle of powerful and influential people, lived on in conspiracy theories and in fiction. Many of the symbols now linked with the Illuminati had been used by other groups for centuries, Freemasonry among them, long before the Illuminati took them up. Sharing a symbol, however, does not mean sharing an identity. The Church of Scientology, for example, borrows symbols from the Christian Church, yet the two have no connection at all.
Whatever conspiracy culture may claim, the Bavarian Illuminati is NOT part of Freemasonry, and it is not the all-powerful secret cabal steering world events that popular culture so often portrays. Its founder, Adam Weishaupt, was a Freemason for a time, but he was not one when he founded the Illuminati. He became a Freemason only afterwards, in February 1777, joining the Munich lodge ‘Zur Behutsamkeit’. He seldom attended and never went beyond the second degree.
If you would like to go deeper into the history of the order, keep scrolling.
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/question/What-was-the-Bavarian-illuminati-group
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bavarian-illuminati
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3491620.pdf
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/01/24/illuminati/
https://bitterwinter.org/the-origins-of-the-bavarian-illuminati/
https://thenewsblender.com/2018/04/debunking-adam-weishaupt-george-washington/
https://darktruth.fandom.com/wiki/Adam_Weishaupt
https://www.britannica.com/topic/illuminati-group-designation
https://www.elitereaders.com/what-is-the-illuminati-answers-about-this-secret-society/
http://amorq.com/article/5040/what-is-the-illuminati-the-answers-to-questions-about-this-secret-society
Watch this video on YouTubeA detailed analysis of the Illuminati
In-Depth Analysis
A note on our main source. Much of this in-depth section rests on the work of Bro. Josef Wäges, who edited, with the historian Reinhard Markner, The Secret School of Wisdom: The Authentic Rituals and Doctrines of the Illuminati (Lewis Masonic, 2015; translated by Jeva Singh-Anand), the first complete English edition of the order’s own rituals and statutes. We are grateful for his tenacious work. Rather than reproduce the book, this page summarises it in our own words and gives the page numbers, so that readers can go to the original:
- the history of the order and its founders: Reinhard Markner’s Introduction, pp. 13–40;
- the three classes of degrees: Minerval Class, pp. 53–107; Freemasonic Class, pp. 119–243; Mysteries Class, pp. 245–354;
- the Minerval medallion, sign and watchwords: p. 63;
- the lodge officers and their duties: pp. 164–173;
- the Docetists: p. 337.
Our other sources were chosen because they deal in facts rather than conspiracy theories; they are listed at the end of this section.
Now for the detail…
Why did the Illuminati choose the owl of Minerva as its emblem?
The book answers this directly. The Minerval degree took its name from Minerva (the Greek Pallas Athene), the patron of knowledge and the arts. When Weishaupt first thought about a seal, he pictured a tawny owl flying before a starry sky, with the motto “Quantum est, quod nescimus” (“How much there is that we do not know”). In the end the sign of the degree became a little owl sitting on the pages of an open book, an idea that seems to have come from a page in Gabriel Rollenhagen’s famous emblem book Nucleus emblematum (1611) (The Secret School of Wisdom, p. 18).
More broadly, throughout history the Owl of Minerva has stood for wisdom and learning. It comes from Roman mythology, in which the owl was the companion of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, and so came to represent the wisdom and knowledge she embodied.
The image took on special weight in the work of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who wrote in the preface to his Philosophy of Right: “When philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a shape of life grown old. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the coming of the dusk.” Put simply, the reflective thinking that makes up philosophy only becomes possible once a way of life has matured to the point where it is already fading. The owl taking flight at dusk has therefore been read as the close of history: in Hegel’s picture, the setting of the sun.
Hegel believed that losing philosophy would have far-reaching consequences, and he set out to win back the leading place it had once held in intellectual life. For him, the owl of Minerva stood for the kind of wisdom that only comes from understanding the past and the way it has shaped the present.
Beyond its history and philosophy, the owl of Minerva is still widely used as an emblem of wisdom and learning. A peer-reviewed journal, for instance, bears its name and publishes rigorous, systematic work on Hegel’s thought from any field, whether philosophy, religion, history, literature, law, economics or the social sciences.
The owl is not only a sign that an age is ending; it also stands for the ability to understand what has happened and to soften its effects. Because it flies at dusk, it suggests that wisdom comes after experience and suffering: only once we have recognised the harm done by certain events can we work out how to limit it.
Foundations Of The Order
On 1 May 1776 Adam Weishaupt, who taught law at the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, founded the Order of the Bavarian Illuminati. At first its aim was to advance the ideals of the Enlightenment, such as reason, liberty and fraternity, and to resist superstition, prejudice and the hold of religion over public life. To do so he created a secret society on the pattern of the Freemasons, but centred on education and on training its members to think critically.
Weishaupt was born in Ingolstadt, in the Electorate of Bavaria (today part of Germany), on 6 February 1748. His father, Johann Georg Weishaupt, also taught law at the University of Ingolstadt and died when Adam was five. The boy then came into the care of his godfather, Johann Adam Freiherr von Ickstatt, another law professor at the same university. On 1 May 1776 Weishaupt brought together a handful of his best students to form the “Bund der Perfektibilisten”, the “Covenant of Perfectibility”. Two years later it was renamed the “Illuminatenorden”, the Order of Illuminati. His aim was to replace Christianity with a religion of reason. Outwardly, though, the order looked very much like a Christian institution: it called itself an “Order”, its first stage was a “Noviciate”, and its rules required every member to be a Christian; an early version of its admission instructions even barred Jews outright, a clause that was later dropped (The Secret School of Wisdom, pp. 16–17).
He wanted that change because he held reason and morality to be the highest expressions of humanity. Grounded in the Golden Rule, never doing to others what you would not want done to yourself, those principles could, he believed, change society for the better. If members of the Illuminati rose to positions of power and influence in fields such as education and politics, they could use their knowledge and standing to improve society as a whole.
That plan depended on recruiting men of the right calibre. Weishaupt began with a small circle of students, teaching them the principles of the Enlightenment with the aim of building an organisation that could act as a counterweight to religion. He also set up a secretive and intricate system of informants and counter-informants: each initiate belonged to an isolated cell and reported to a superior whose identity he did not know, a party structure that some later groups effectively copied. In February 1777 Weishaupt was accepted into the Munich lodge ‘Zur Behutsamkeit’, an aristocratic lodge of the Strict Observance, but he rarely attended and never progressed beyond the second degree. It was his colleague Franz Xaver von Zwack who joined the rival lodge ‘Theodor zum guten Rath’ and turned it into a recruiting ground for the Illuminati, among well-connected men of society who already knew of, and were drawn to, secret societies (The Secret School of Wisdom, p. 23). He also had his members try to infiltrate other societies and keep a close watch on everything that appeared in print. When a published work drew attention, they would try to recruit its author, and if he refused, they would denounce him.
The Degree Structure
Despite what is often assumed, the Illuminati did not begin in 1776 with a finished structure and ritual; both developed step by step over the order’s short life. Adolph Freiherr Knigge, one of its leading figures, who recruited new members and helped to shape its organisation and ceremonies, left an account of it in “Philo’s Reply”, which historians treat as a key source on the order’s history and practice (cited in the book’s Introduction, p. 20). By Knigge’s account, many degrees had not even been put into final form while he was involved. The two highest degrees, Magus and Rex, were never completed at all: only their lectures were written, and the Rex degree seems to be little more than a set of outline points on which a ritual was to be built (the surviving manuscripts are headed “Philosophi. Sages”, Introduction, p. 37). In “Adam Weishaupt als Philosoph”, Martin Mulsow suggests that the Rex degree existed in its present form by 1784 at the latest, Weishaupt later reused this material in print. In 1786 he published a revised and expanded version of the Docetists degree as his “philosophical fragment” “Ueber Materialismus und Idealismus” (Nuremberg), and in 1787 he included a long excerpt from the Philosophi degree in his “Nachtrag zur Rechtfertigung meiner Absichten” (The Secret School of Wisdom, pp. 39–40). What left the highest degrees unfinished was not their reception but Weishaupt’s bitter quarrel with Knigge. After about two years of close collaboration their relationship was beyond repair, all communication between them stopped, and without Knigge, Weishaupt never even attempted to complete the two highest degrees on his own (pp. 32 and 36).
The final degree system of the Illuminati
(No, it was not 95 degrees: only about a dozen, in three classes, as listed below.)
I. Minerval Class.
- Noviciate
- Minerval Degree.
- Minervalis Illuminatus, or Illuminatus Minor.
Pictured: the Minerval medallion, an openwork piece of gilded metal. Minervals wore it around the neck on a grass-green ribbon three fingers wide; Directing Minervals wore it on a slightly broader ribbon of the same colour, running from the right shoulder to the left (The Secret School of Wisdom, p. 63).
According to the same page of the book, Minervals made their sign by holding a flat hand over the eyes, like someone dazzled by a bright light, and gave the grip by taking the other man’s hand and tapping it lightly three times with the little finger. Every year two watchwords were issued, the name of a place and the name of a man. One might ask, for example, “Where does the light shine brightest?” and be answered “In Sagunto”; or “Who sees it brightest?”, answered “Hanno”.
II. Freemasonic Class
- Apprentice Degree
- Fellowcraft Degree
- Master Mason Lodge. (Symbolic Freemasonry).
- Illuminatus Major. Greater Illuminati or Scottish Novice.
- Illuminatus Dirigens. Scottish Knight.
—
—
III. Mysteries Class
- Lesser Mysteries
I.) Lesser Priest Degree. Presbyter.
II.) Lesser Regent Degree. Princeps. - Greater Mysteries
I.) Docetists.
II.) Philosophi. Sages
—
—
The order also wrote its own rules for the Masonic lodges it controlled. Its “Improved Constitution Book for the St. John’s Lodge” lists the officers of every lodge and sets out each one’s duties (The Secret School of Wisdom, pp. 164–173). They are summarised below.
Essential officers in every lodge (p. 166):
A) The Worshipful Master.
B) The Deputy Master.
C) The Senior Warden.
D) The Junior Warden.
E) The Secretary.
F) The Treasurer.
G) The Master of Ceremonies.
Non-essential officers:
H) The Almoner.
I) The Housekeeper.
K) The Orator.
L) Steward
M) Steward
N) The Sick Visitor.
O) The Decorator.
P) The Librarian.
Duties of the Lodge Officers
THE DEPUTY W. M. (p. 168)
- The office always goes to the previous year’s Worshipful Master.
- He acts as the Provincial Lodge’s representative.
- He stands in for the W. M. whenever the Master is absent or unable to attend.
- His breast jewel is a pair of compasses.
- He directly oversees any educational institutions the lodge runs.
- He pays no monthly dues while he holds office.
THE SENIOR WARDEN (p. 168)
Besides the duties set out in the ritual, he is to:
- Keep watch over the brethren’s morals and their good conduct in every respect.
- Bring to the W. M.’s attention anything of importance to Freemasonry.
- Together with the Treasurer, directly manage any business ventures the lodge has set up, such as trading companies.
- Wear the scales as his breast jewel and carry a gavel.
- Pay no monthly dues during his term.
THE JUNIOR WARDEN (p. 169)
As well as his part in the ritual, he is to:
- Keep an eye on the brethren’s political conduct, prudence and discretion.
- Report anything of that kind to the W. M.
- Deal, as his special field, with complaints, news and anything that could affect the Order or its members politically.
- Wear a plumb as his breast jewel and carry a gavel.
- Pay no monthly dues while in office.
THE SECRETARY (p. 169)
- At every lodge meeting he writes up and signs the minutes in a book kept for the purpose, then passes it to the W. M. to sign.
- He keeps the register of members, recording any changes in their careers both inside and outside the lodge.
- He keeps a book in which visiting brethren sign their names.
- He reads aloud in lodge the by-laws, the articles of the constitution, letters and similar papers.
- He handles the correspondence, but every outgoing letter, and every reply received, must first be laid before the Officers Lodge.
- He keeps a record of all correspondence.
- He keeps the accounts for stamps and stationery, gathers the dues owed by absent brethren, saves the lodge money where he can by using prepaid addresses, and works to build up this fund.
- He keeps the archives in order and stored at the lodge house, taking letters home as seldom as he can.
- When the Master directs, he gives notice of lodge meetings, either by word of mouth or by circular.
- As St John’s Day approaches, he reminds the brethren to send in their nominations for the Master’s election.
- At every meeting he opens the deposit box and reports on it to the W. M.
- He notes any news that has to be passed on to absent members.
- He gathers up the ballots and the voting balls.
- He keeps everything connected with his office in the strictest confidence.
- On St John’s Day he hands his books to the Officers Lodge and passes any surplus in his fund to the Treasurer, against a receipt.
- He may ask younger brethren to help him and put forward names for the purpose.
- He is excused his monthly dues for his term of office.
THE TREASURER (p. 170)
- He collects the initiation fees, runs the main fund in general and holds the second key to the money box.
- He advises the W. M. on how the funds should be used.
- He pays a share of the initiation fees, one-tenth for each degree, into the household fund.
- Just as he receives any surplus funds, he must also repay any advances made with the Officers Lodge’s approval.
- Each year on St John’s Day he presents his accounts to the Officers Lodge and hands over the money box.
- He helps to direct every major financial institution the lodge runs.
- His breast jewel is a pair of keys.
- He pays no monthly dues during his term.
THE MASTER OF CEREMONIES (p. 170)
- He makes sure the prescribed ceremonies are followed.
- He shows each brother to his proper place.
- Brethren from elsewhere and visitors are sent to him, and examining them is his responsibility.
- He sees that everything in the lodge is properly presented, including the preparation and serving of the dishes at the Table Lodge.
- He looks after travelling brethren, making their stay pleasant and giving them useful addresses.
- He takes part in every deputation, whether to princes, to other lodges or to government departments (the “dicasteries”).
- He makes sure the brethren are always properly dressed in lodge: Entered Apprentices in white lambskin aprons, Fellow Crafts in aprons with a small band, and Master Masons in aprons lined with blue. No other insignia of any degree, genuine or spurious, may be worn.
- A sword is both the weapon he carries and the emblem on his breast.
THE ALMONER (p. 171)
- At every lodge meeting he collects donations for the poor.
- He also collects the fines.
- Once the lodge has closed, he counts what has come in and records it; the W. M., who holds the second key, then signs the entry.
- On St John’s Day he hands his ledger and money box to the Officers Lodge, although this fund is always kept apart from the others.
- At the W. M.’s direction he pays out to the poor whatever sums the lodge has approved, giving preference to brethren who are poor but honest.
- If the funds allow, he puts forward proposals for investing the money, but the fund must never be allowed to shrink to a few guilders, and he must warn the lodge before it does.
- He carries an alms bag, and his breast jewel is a flaming heart.
- He is the chief director of all the poor-relief and health institutions the lodge runs.
THE HOUSEKEEPER (p. 171)
- The monthly dues are his to collect, together with a tenth of the initiation fees the Treasurer takes in.
- From this he pays the rent of the lodge house, buys the candles, aprons, gloves and membership insignia, pays the serving brethren’s wages and meets similar costs.
- He keeps accounts for all this, hands them to the Officers Lodge on St John’s Day and passes any surplus to the Treasurer. The W. M. holds the second key.
- He orders and pays for the food, and collects the money for it from the brethren.
- His breast jewel is the lodge’s coat of arms.
- He manages all of the lodge’s smaller business ventures, such as letting any houses it owns and seeing to their building and upkeep, and he is expected to make this fund grow.
- As with the six officers listed before him, he is excused his monthly dues for as long as he serves.
THE ORATOR (p. 172)
- When the W. M. asks, he must be ready to give an address at any lodge meeting and to speak for the lodge on festive occasions.
- Every address must first be submitted to the W. M. for checking.
- His breast jewel is a scroll, made in metal.
- He helps to direct all educational and scientific institutions.
THE STEWARDS (p. 172)
- In general, they keep good order in the lodge.
- They come forward on festive occasions.
- They must be ready to help the other officers with their duties.
- They carry rods in their hands, and a rod is also their breast jewel.
THE SICK VISITOR (p. 172)
- Whenever he learns that a brother is ill, he must make himself available, see that the brother lacks nothing in care and support and, if necessary, report the case to the Officers Lodge so that it can decide what to do.
- Together with the Almoner, he directs any healthcare facilities, hospitals or similar institutions the lodge runs.
- His breast jewel is a cross.
- He must make sure that no letters or other Masonic items are left with brethren who are gravely ill.
THE DECORATOR (p. 172)
- He sees that the lodge rooms are properly decorated and kept clean, and that the candles are lit and put out at the right times.
- When something new is needed, he reports it and is told how the money is to be found, including whether it is to come out of the housekeeping fund.
- He then buys it, presents the receipts on St John’s Day, keeps it all locked away, and returns the keys when the year is out.
- As far as he can, he arranges the decorations so that everything is movable and easy to put up and take down.
- His breast jewel is a pair of lit candles, made in metal.
- He helps to direct any craft workshops or factories the lodge runs.
THE LIBRARIAN (p. 173)
- He keeps the book collection in good order and does his best to preserve it and add to it.
- Each St John’s Day he hands back the catalogue, the collection and the keys, all in good order.
- He looks after any cabinets, manuscripts and similar items the lodge owns that are not part of the archives.
- He helps to direct any educational or other learned institutions the lodge runs.
- His breast jewel is a book.
How the Degrees Took Shape: a Timeline
The Minerval maxim: “Quidquid agis, age prudente et respice finem.”
[Whatever you do, act prudently and consider the outcome.]
The dates below follow Josef Wäges’s article “Progression of the Illuminati Ritual” (listed in the sources), read alongside the Introduction to The Secret School of Wisdom (pp. 13–40).
1 May 1776.
The Order of the Perfectibilists, later the Illuminati, is founded.
31 October 1777.
Weishaupt is still working out the system. He plans three classes: a preparatory class, or Novice; a second class, not described any further; and a third class called the Mysteries.
1778.
According to Wäges’s blog, Weishaupt was due to finish the plan for the second class in November, but it was not ready. The book dates this differently: in March 1778 Weishaupt was drafting the statutes of a “second class”; in November, having received the “Statuta Illuminatorum”, he set out to write a “middle degree” between the Noviciate and the Illuminatus degree, and he seems to have finished it by early December 1778. The Minerval degree was introduced towards the end of 1778, after the Areopagus had been set up in Munich (The Secret School of Wisdom, pp. 17–18).
1779.
Wäges’s blog places the writing of the Minerval manual in this year (the book, as noted above, dates it to the end of 1778). Weishaupt writes the manual for the second class and calls it the Minerval degree. It goes under several names: the Illuminati degree, the second degree, the Minerval Class or the Assembly. The first Assembly meets at the home of Ferdinand Maria Baader on 16 February 1779. By the middle of the year Weishaupt has delivered three booklets for the higher degrees:
• Novice
• Minerval
• Minerval Illuminatus
The Mysteries, however, are still incomplete.
20 March 1781.
Weishaupt sketches out a merger of the Order with Freemasonry: the Minervals are to be joined with the Apprentices, the Illuminati Minor with the Fellow Crafts and the Illuminati Major with the Masters. The Illuminatus Dirigens degree exists only as a name, still without any content.
26 May 1781.
Weishaupt writes to “Cato” (Franz Xaver von Zwack, 1756–1843) that he is asking London for a constitution, and that he does not like the Masonic degrees Knigge has proposed; yet the energy for the overhaul seems to have run out. The Areopagites realise that the founder cannot bring the Masonic system into the Order himself. Knigge is allowed to appoint as many men to the Areopagus as he wishes and, with its agreement, he separates the Freemasons from the Illuminati, building the Order’s structure on top of Masonry from the Illuminatus Major upwards. The final wording of the degrees of the Mysteries still has to be submitted to the Areopagus.
7 July 1781.
Knigge becomes a member of the Areopagite Council, which adopts the “Shared Decision” and admits that without Knigge they would fail. The existing Minerval and Illuminatus Minor degrees are expanded, and the foundations of the Illuminatus Major are laid. Knigge wants the Order to stop being a band of students led by their teachers; its guiding principle now becomes the fight against superstition, despotism and tyranny.
20 December 1781: the “Recess among the Areopagites”.
The Areopagites agree to submit to Adam Weishaupt, but are given the authority to govern the whole Order.
21 March 1782: the “Convention of Munich”.
The Illuminati break with the Royal York lodge (25 March 1782) and set up a new Masonic system built over the three symbolic degrees, with a fixed line of Superiors: Minerval Assemblies are to be led by Illuminati Minor, and lodges by Scottish Knights. The convention makes the break with Royal York official, takes some 121 lodges under the Order’s care, adopts the new Masonic system for the three symbolic degrees and approves the organisational plan Knigge submitted on 20 January 1782. This is the final system as it is known today.
Note on these dates. The dates for the break with Royal York given above follow Wäges’s blog. The book gives a different sequence: the Munich lodge “St. Théodore au bon conseil” was granted the status of a Royal York Provincial Lodge in October 1781; the Bavarians revoked that arrangement in June 1782, over further conflicts and worries about the financial terms; and the lodge broke its bonds with Royal York and began adopting Knigge’s new ritual in the summer of 1782 (The Secret School of Wisdom, pp. 25–27).
A note on the “Docetists”. As the book’s translator, Jeva Singh-Anand, has explained, scholars such as Dr Monika Neugebauer-Wölk, Dr Martin Mulsow and Reinhard Markner agree that the name “Doceten” comes from Docetism, from the Greek δοκεῖν (dokein, “to seem” or “to appear”); the book itself gives a short note on p. 337. Docetism, a belief related to Gnosticism and Adoptionism, held that Christ’s physical body was only an illusion or phantom, because an infinite and eternal God cannot die. One version taught instead that Jesus was not God come down to earth but a man chosen to teach the Gospel to his disciples. Docetism was rejected as heresy by the First Council of Nicaea in 325.
Sources and additional resources:
Book: Josef Wäges and Reinhard Markner (eds), The Secret School of Wisdom: The Authentic Rituals and Doctrines of the Illuminati, translated by Jeva Singh-Anand (Lewis Masonic, 2015), ISBN 978-0-85318-493-5
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-School-Wisdom-Authentic-Illuminati/dp/0853184933
https://www.conspiracyarchive.com/2018/10/09/joe-wages-interview-illuminati-primary-source-material/
https://database.factgrid.de/wiki/FactGrid:The_Gotha_Illuminati_Research_Base
The So-Called Schwedenkiste (“Swedish Box”), the Most Significant Illuminati Archive
https://www.conspiracyarchive.com/2015/07/28/the-so-called-schwedenkiste-swedish-box-the-most-significant-illuminati-archive/
Markner et al., Die Korrespondenz des Illuminatenordens: Baader to Costanzo, Munich, 7 May 1780
https://www.scribd.com/document/390512603/Markner-Et-Al-Die-Korrespondenz-Baader-to-Costanzo-Munich-7-5-1780-2005-Pp-154-57-Tr-T-Melanson-J-Wages
Origins of the Bavarian Illuminati
https://illuminatiofbavaria.wordpress.com/article/the-illuminati-of-bavaria-origins-of-1vn6fdl0grm02-7/
Illuminati of Bavaria
https://sites.google.com/site/illuminatiofbavaria/
The truth about the Bavarian Illuminati
https://bavarianilluminati.wordpress.com/
Perfectibilists: The 18th Century Bavarian Order of the Illuminati
https://www.amazon.com/Perfectibilists-Century-Bavarian-Order-Illuminati/dp/0977795381
Illuminati Conspiracy Part One: A Precise Exegesis on the Available Evidence
https://www.conspiracyarchive.com/2014/01/29/illuminati-conspiracy-part-one/
Progression of the Illuminati Ritual (Josef Wäges)
https://bavarianilluminati.wordpress.com/2013/12/21/progression-of-the-illuminati-ritual/
Adolph Freiherr Knigge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Freiherr_Knigge
Illuminati Degree: Scottish Novice (Illum. Major)
https://bavarianilluminati.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/illuminati-degree-scottish-novice-illum-major/
https://www.facebook.com/complex/posts/illuminati-101-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-illuminati-summed-up-here/10153757498354367/
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=516235042542074
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2015206675286871
https://www.disinfo.eu/publications/want-to-get-rich-apply-today-and-join-the-illuminati/
The Illuminati Myth: Where It Comes From
Which conspiracy theory sources have fuelled the claim that the Illuminati and Freemasonry are one and the same, and why are the two so often tangled together and confused?
(A) Contemporary conspiracy theory sources are these books:
1/ Proofs of a Conspiracy: Against All The Religions and Governments Of Europe, Carried On In The Secret Meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies.
https://www.amazon.com/Proofs-Conspiracy-Governments-Freemasons-Illuminati/dp/1502306387/
2/ Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism
https://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-illustrating-history-jacobinism-Barruel/dp/0964115050/
(B) Modern conspiracy theory sources are these books:
1/ The Secret Story of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Protocols-of-the-Elders-of-Zion
2/ The Illuminati: The Secret Society That Hijacked the World
https://www.amazon.com/The-Illuminati-Jim-Marrs-audiobook/dp/B07FGG6V5X/
3/ Roosevelt’s Communist Manifesto & Science of Government Founded on Natural Law
https://www.amazon.com/Roosevelts-Communist-Manifesto-Science-Government/dp/B000MS5XWA/
Taken together, the (A) contemporary and (B) modern conspiracy theories leave people feeling powerless and strip away any motivation to ‘fix the world’. They encourage everyone to sit back and do nothing, on the grounds that it’s going to happen anyway…
Anyone who follows today’s conspiracy scene will recognise that pattern straight away. For anyone who does not, it is simple: the Q cult. It is a copy of ‘Operation Trust’, the psychological operation the Bolshevik regime ran in the 1920s (source here for more detail). It follows the same playbook and uses the same rhetoric, including narratives taken from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, only this time buried under decades of lies piled on lies.
The same applies to people who claim today to be former members of the Illuminati. Since the Order was suppressed in 1785 and had ceased all activity by 1788, nobody alive can be an “ex-Illuminati”, yet several self-styled insiders have built careers on exactly that claim. For one well-known example, see Claim #26: Leo Zagami and the “ex-Illuminati” story.
Note: these books are named not to promote or advertise them, but to show who is behind these foolish and shameful conspiracy theories and where they began, so that readers know their true origins and are equipped not to spread the lies any further. As the list makes clear, most of these theories grow out of religious extremism and fundamentalism, above all from extremist Christian circles.
Below is a list of highly recommended books on the Illuminati and on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the lie most responsible for spreading the Illuminati myth.
Also on the Protocols forgery: The Lie That Will Not Die: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and The Myth of the Jewish Menace in World Affairs: Or, the Truth About the Forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion.