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The Bavarian Illuminati
The Rise and Fall of the World's Most Secret Society
Translated by Jon E. Graham
Published by Inner Traditions
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
The definitive history of the Bavarian Order of the Illuminati and their founder, Adam Weishaupt
• Details the rise and fall of this famous and infamous Order, including its penetration of Bavarian society and its destruction by the Bavarian government
• Explains the Bavarian Illuminati’s grades, rituals, ceremonies, and fundamental philosophies and examines the leaders of the Order
• Contains the only surviving record of documents that were destroyed during the two World Wars
The Bavarian Order of the Illuminati is the most celebrated secret society in the world. Though officially lasting only 11 years, the powerful spell and shadow cast by the Illuminati still looms in the present day, where its influence can be seen in current conspiracy beliefs and actions by powerful individuals working in the shadows. The original Order of the Illuminati was founded by Bavarian professor Adam Weishaupt in 1776. Although the order was banned and brought down by the Bavarian Elector in 1787--when he became aware of the extent to which it had infiltrated the courts, schools, and his own administration--its legend and deep influence lives on to this day.
Charting the rise and fall of this infamous order, this book--first published in French in 1915 and never before available in English--remains the definitive history of the Order of the Bavarian Illuminati. It also offers a revealing look at the world that spawned and shaped it: a ceaseless ferment of revolutionary and occult ideas and the ceaseless attempts by crown and church to suppress them. Other secret societies that shared the stage with the Illuminati during these years include the Templar Strict Observance, von Hund’s Templar Freemasonry, and other Masonic lodges the Illuminati targeted to subvert for their own purposes. Many of the documents the author consulted for the writing of this book were destroyed during the two World Wars, making this book the only surviving record of many of the order’s secrets.
The author explains the Bavarian Illuminati’s grades, rituals, and ceremonies as well as its fundamental philosophies. He paints vivid portraits of the leaders of the order, including Weishaupt, Baron Knigge, and Xavier von Zwack. He reveals how Weishaupt early on decided to subvert the existing German Freemason Lodge as a shortcut to gain esoteric hegemony over the occult world, all in order to extend Illuminati influence into the society at large and the government. The author also provides extensive detail of the order’s eventual destruction by the Bavarian government.
In addition to its revelation of little-known secrets of the Illuminati Order, the author also sheds new light on much of the occult life of this time, including the activities of figures such as Cagliostro and Mirabeau and other active groups such as Freemason chapters, the Rosicrucians, and the Martinists.
• Details the rise and fall of this famous and infamous Order, including its penetration of Bavarian society and its destruction by the Bavarian government
• Explains the Bavarian Illuminati’s grades, rituals, ceremonies, and fundamental philosophies and examines the leaders of the Order
• Contains the only surviving record of documents that were destroyed during the two World Wars
The Bavarian Order of the Illuminati is the most celebrated secret society in the world. Though officially lasting only 11 years, the powerful spell and shadow cast by the Illuminati still looms in the present day, where its influence can be seen in current conspiracy beliefs and actions by powerful individuals working in the shadows. The original Order of the Illuminati was founded by Bavarian professor Adam Weishaupt in 1776. Although the order was banned and brought down by the Bavarian Elector in 1787--when he became aware of the extent to which it had infiltrated the courts, schools, and his own administration--its legend and deep influence lives on to this day.
Charting the rise and fall of this infamous order, this book--first published in French in 1915 and never before available in English--remains the definitive history of the Order of the Bavarian Illuminati. It also offers a revealing look at the world that spawned and shaped it: a ceaseless ferment of revolutionary and occult ideas and the ceaseless attempts by crown and church to suppress them. Other secret societies that shared the stage with the Illuminati during these years include the Templar Strict Observance, von Hund’s Templar Freemasonry, and other Masonic lodges the Illuminati targeted to subvert for their own purposes. Many of the documents the author consulted for the writing of this book were destroyed during the two World Wars, making this book the only surviving record of many of the order’s secrets.
The author explains the Bavarian Illuminati’s grades, rituals, and ceremonies as well as its fundamental philosophies. He paints vivid portraits of the leaders of the order, including Weishaupt, Baron Knigge, and Xavier von Zwack. He reveals how Weishaupt early on decided to subvert the existing German Freemason Lodge as a shortcut to gain esoteric hegemony over the occult world, all in order to extend Illuminati influence into the society at large and the government. The author also provides extensive detail of the order’s eventual destruction by the Bavarian government.
In addition to its revelation of little-known secrets of the Illuminati Order, the author also sheds new light on much of the occult life of this time, including the activities of figures such as Cagliostro and Mirabeau and other active groups such as Freemason chapters, the Rosicrucians, and the Martinists.
Excerpt
From Chapter One. The Founding of the Order and the Man Who Founded It
The isolation in which young professor Adam Weishaupt found himself was the consequence of his errors in conduct, his foolhardy language, and his scheming. But he held too high an opinion of himself to acknowledge his own faults, and his pride found the most flattering explanation for the enmity he had inspired. In complete good faith Weishaupt considered himself as a martyr of free thought fighting at the University of Ingolstadt against the upholders of obscurantism. He believed he was persecuted by them because “it was dangerous to be a man who thinks and loves the truth of professing natural law and practical philosophy to their fullest extent.”39 His anxious mind exaggerated the power of the clerical faction and the importance of their hostility, which, although real, had yet failed to deliver any palpable blows against him.40 His vanity refused to recognize that it was his own ingratitude that had alienated the leader of the philosophical faction at Ingolstadt, and he convinced himself that Ickstatt had pusillanimously joined with his natural enemies to sacrifice the one man with the courage to profess true principles without any cowardly reservations. Thus the bold confessor of the truth found himself alone to battle, with visor raised, against the bigoted rabble. A less hardened will would have allowed this modest professor of a University of little prestige lost in a remote corner of Bavaria, who was poorly paid, poorly viewed by the majority of his colleagues, despised by his Trustee, and watched and suspected by all those scandalized at the radical nature of his opinions, flounder in inert resignation or drown in a persecution mania. But the soul of Weishaupt had two powerful motivating forces at its disposal: his thirst for proselytizing and his will to power. The vocation he once dreamed about in Ickstatt’s library now appeared to him more necessary than ever. To successfully fight the enemies of Reason, it would be necessary, he thought, to go on the offensive. By opening the eyes of others to the light, he would recruit a band of loyal followers, an increasingly powerful faction whose support he could rely upon and it would be his pleasure to educate attentive and respectful disciples whom he could guide and command, and be in his turn the teacher. While continuing to teach his classes, keeping an eye on the Jesuits’ maneuvers, fighting his colleagues and the Trustee, he formed the plan for an association that he would lead, which would create propaganda for Truth and Reason and with the growing number of his troops supporting free thought and progress he would oppose the coalition forces of lies and superstition.
He was the only person in Ingolstadt he could rely upon to lead such an undertaking to a successful conclusion, an undertaking he was convinced would bring him all that life had to offer such as security, satisfaction of his self-esteem, the pleasure of command, and the delight provided by helping truth to triumph. Where could he find allies to help him lead his struggle against the powerful factions that sought to keep the masses shackled to stupidity and superstition and who persecuted those who championed progress and reason, allies numerous enough to form a formidable army, but with enough discretion to avoid arousing the attention of an enemy too powerful to assail openly at first, allies skillful enough to undermine the foundations of the ramparts that could not be taken by brute force? History held the answers to this question. Didn’t history teach that the mysteries of Eleusis had gathered together all the higher minds of Greece who worshipped one God who demanded neither fatted heifers, or talents of silver or gold, while the ignorant mob, kept in its error by a self-interested clergy, made sacrifices to the countless gods of a vulgar polytheism? Hadn’t he also read that the powerful secret society of the Pythagorians of Crotona had been able to rule that city for a long span of years? Thus, it would be in secret societies where he should seek out the lever he required, for it was through such societies that progress had made its way through the world, and within them dwelled a power whose concealment made it yet more irresistible. Through a kind of brilliant premonition he had sensed this truth long before history and reflection had combined to reveal it to him. At the age of eighteen, while still on the benches of the University, “at the time when the assiduous reading of the Greek and Roman historians had inspired in him a precocious hatred of all baseness and oppression,” he had deduced how weak man was outside a group, and how a group gave him strength, and he had drawn up the “imperfect and puerile” statutes of an association whose purpose would be “to strengthen the ties that bind men together and gather together their scattered forces.”41
As chance would have it, at the same time Weishaupt reached this conclusion his attention was drawn to a contemporary secret society of which he had often heard others speak. Toward the end of 1774, a Protestant originally from Hanover arrived in Ingolstadt, with whom he became friendly. He asked this stranger for information concerning the organization of Protestant universities and about the student secret societies that flourished there. He saw mysterious papers in the Hanoverian’s possession and this latter let it be known that he was connected to the Freemasons. As he displayed great reserve on this subject, Weishaupt, whose curiosity was quickly aroused because of his reluctance, sought to get an idea of the nature and organization of this secret society by putting together the fragments of confidences torn from his interlocutor and charging his imagination with the task of filling in the gaps that the initiate’s discretion had left in his description. He was particularly struck by the profound difference between the true and the false Freemasonry and the ease with which a candidate poorly served by circumstance could be led astray on this major point. Following a rather peculiar line of reasoning, he concluded that the authentic Freemasonry must be something of infinitely rare and excellent quality, and he envisioned it in a way that fired his enthusiasm. He could conceive of nothing more perfect, more logical, or wiser than the constitution of this society. He imagined that it would have to use the most extreme prudence when selecting its members, and that it would subject these members constantly to severe tests. Completely consumed by this idea, he renounced the project he had been forming to found his own occult association and “deeming like many others that it was more convenient to sit down at a table that was already set than to set his own table,”42 he resolved to join, whatever the cost with the Freemasons, in order to find wherein “a haven for oppressed innocence.”43
As his initiator had left at this juncture without giving him any more precise clues, Weishaupt wrote to all the places he believed Freemasons might be found. He received an answer from Nuremberg that the brothers of that city were disposed to accept him into their lodge. This answer filled him with joy and, his imagination continuing to run wild, he concluded that the Freemasons of Ingolstadt had received an order to keep him under surveillance and provide a report of his conduct. He suspected all men living an austere and hermit-like existence of belonging to the Society and, certain that he was being meticulously observed by numerous strangers, and strongly convinced that not a single action escaped their notice, sought to fulfill his duties with the greatest sense of exactitude.44
However his exaltation deflated fairly quickly for two reasons. First, the costs of admission into the Nuremberg Lodge, coupled with those necessary for traveling and living expenses there exceeded the means of the young professor. The Nuremberg Freemasons, on being informed of his difficulties, referred him to Munich, where there was another Lodge of the same obedience and which had announced it was ready to accept him as a member, but here too the entrance fees were too steep for him. Furthermore, he found the books on Freemasonry he had procured deeply disappointing. He was very disheartened to find all the grades imprinted within them and then learning that they were in fact the authentic grades. As the mystery evaporated so did the charm that Freemasonry had exerted on his overheated imagination; moreover, the grades that he had the opportunity of reading responded in no way to the ideal he had formed of them. He therefore abandoned his plan to solicit admittance into the society but his disillusionment did not clip the wings of his fantasy. The idea of the utility that an association of this kind would possess and all that, from his own experience, he felt could be obtained from men through their attraction to mystery had rooted itself deeply in his mind.45 He returned to his original plan and resolved to found a model secret society himself.
The isolation in which young professor Adam Weishaupt found himself was the consequence of his errors in conduct, his foolhardy language, and his scheming. But he held too high an opinion of himself to acknowledge his own faults, and his pride found the most flattering explanation for the enmity he had inspired. In complete good faith Weishaupt considered himself as a martyr of free thought fighting at the University of Ingolstadt against the upholders of obscurantism. He believed he was persecuted by them because “it was dangerous to be a man who thinks and loves the truth of professing natural law and practical philosophy to their fullest extent.”39 His anxious mind exaggerated the power of the clerical faction and the importance of their hostility, which, although real, had yet failed to deliver any palpable blows against him.40 His vanity refused to recognize that it was his own ingratitude that had alienated the leader of the philosophical faction at Ingolstadt, and he convinced himself that Ickstatt had pusillanimously joined with his natural enemies to sacrifice the one man with the courage to profess true principles without any cowardly reservations. Thus the bold confessor of the truth found himself alone to battle, with visor raised, against the bigoted rabble. A less hardened will would have allowed this modest professor of a University of little prestige lost in a remote corner of Bavaria, who was poorly paid, poorly viewed by the majority of his colleagues, despised by his Trustee, and watched and suspected by all those scandalized at the radical nature of his opinions, flounder in inert resignation or drown in a persecution mania. But the soul of Weishaupt had two powerful motivating forces at its disposal: his thirst for proselytizing and his will to power. The vocation he once dreamed about in Ickstatt’s library now appeared to him more necessary than ever. To successfully fight the enemies of Reason, it would be necessary, he thought, to go on the offensive. By opening the eyes of others to the light, he would recruit a band of loyal followers, an increasingly powerful faction whose support he could rely upon and it would be his pleasure to educate attentive and respectful disciples whom he could guide and command, and be in his turn the teacher. While continuing to teach his classes, keeping an eye on the Jesuits’ maneuvers, fighting his colleagues and the Trustee, he formed the plan for an association that he would lead, which would create propaganda for Truth and Reason and with the growing number of his troops supporting free thought and progress he would oppose the coalition forces of lies and superstition.
He was the only person in Ingolstadt he could rely upon to lead such an undertaking to a successful conclusion, an undertaking he was convinced would bring him all that life had to offer such as security, satisfaction of his self-esteem, the pleasure of command, and the delight provided by helping truth to triumph. Where could he find allies to help him lead his struggle against the powerful factions that sought to keep the masses shackled to stupidity and superstition and who persecuted those who championed progress and reason, allies numerous enough to form a formidable army, but with enough discretion to avoid arousing the attention of an enemy too powerful to assail openly at first, allies skillful enough to undermine the foundations of the ramparts that could not be taken by brute force? History held the answers to this question. Didn’t history teach that the mysteries of Eleusis had gathered together all the higher minds of Greece who worshipped one God who demanded neither fatted heifers, or talents of silver or gold, while the ignorant mob, kept in its error by a self-interested clergy, made sacrifices to the countless gods of a vulgar polytheism? Hadn’t he also read that the powerful secret society of the Pythagorians of Crotona had been able to rule that city for a long span of years? Thus, it would be in secret societies where he should seek out the lever he required, for it was through such societies that progress had made its way through the world, and within them dwelled a power whose concealment made it yet more irresistible. Through a kind of brilliant premonition he had sensed this truth long before history and reflection had combined to reveal it to him. At the age of eighteen, while still on the benches of the University, “at the time when the assiduous reading of the Greek and Roman historians had inspired in him a precocious hatred of all baseness and oppression,” he had deduced how weak man was outside a group, and how a group gave him strength, and he had drawn up the “imperfect and puerile” statutes of an association whose purpose would be “to strengthen the ties that bind men together and gather together their scattered forces.”41
As chance would have it, at the same time Weishaupt reached this conclusion his attention was drawn to a contemporary secret society of which he had often heard others speak. Toward the end of 1774, a Protestant originally from Hanover arrived in Ingolstadt, with whom he became friendly. He asked this stranger for information concerning the organization of Protestant universities and about the student secret societies that flourished there. He saw mysterious papers in the Hanoverian’s possession and this latter let it be known that he was connected to the Freemasons. As he displayed great reserve on this subject, Weishaupt, whose curiosity was quickly aroused because of his reluctance, sought to get an idea of the nature and organization of this secret society by putting together the fragments of confidences torn from his interlocutor and charging his imagination with the task of filling in the gaps that the initiate’s discretion had left in his description. He was particularly struck by the profound difference between the true and the false Freemasonry and the ease with which a candidate poorly served by circumstance could be led astray on this major point. Following a rather peculiar line of reasoning, he concluded that the authentic Freemasonry must be something of infinitely rare and excellent quality, and he envisioned it in a way that fired his enthusiasm. He could conceive of nothing more perfect, more logical, or wiser than the constitution of this society. He imagined that it would have to use the most extreme prudence when selecting its members, and that it would subject these members constantly to severe tests. Completely consumed by this idea, he renounced the project he had been forming to found his own occult association and “deeming like many others that it was more convenient to sit down at a table that was already set than to set his own table,”42 he resolved to join, whatever the cost with the Freemasons, in order to find wherein “a haven for oppressed innocence.”43
As his initiator had left at this juncture without giving him any more precise clues, Weishaupt wrote to all the places he believed Freemasons might be found. He received an answer from Nuremberg that the brothers of that city were disposed to accept him into their lodge. This answer filled him with joy and, his imagination continuing to run wild, he concluded that the Freemasons of Ingolstadt had received an order to keep him under surveillance and provide a report of his conduct. He suspected all men living an austere and hermit-like existence of belonging to the Society and, certain that he was being meticulously observed by numerous strangers, and strongly convinced that not a single action escaped their notice, sought to fulfill his duties with the greatest sense of exactitude.44
However his exaltation deflated fairly quickly for two reasons. First, the costs of admission into the Nuremberg Lodge, coupled with those necessary for traveling and living expenses there exceeded the means of the young professor. The Nuremberg Freemasons, on being informed of his difficulties, referred him to Munich, where there was another Lodge of the same obedience and which had announced it was ready to accept him as a member, but here too the entrance fees were too steep for him. Furthermore, he found the books on Freemasonry he had procured deeply disappointing. He was very disheartened to find all the grades imprinted within them and then learning that they were in fact the authentic grades. As the mystery evaporated so did the charm that Freemasonry had exerted on his overheated imagination; moreover, the grades that he had the opportunity of reading responded in no way to the ideal he had formed of them. He therefore abandoned his plan to solicit admittance into the society but his disillusionment did not clip the wings of his fantasy. The idea of the utility that an association of this kind would possess and all that, from his own experience, he felt could be obtained from men through their attraction to mystery had rooted itself deeply in his mind.45 He returned to his original plan and resolved to found a model secret society himself.
Product Details
- Publisher: Inner Traditions (June 15, 2022)
- Length: 912 pages
- ISBN13: 9781644113776
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Raves and Reviews
“In a world where the term ‘Illuminati’ is ubiquitous yet clouded by fantasy, Jon E. Graham’s new translation of this classic study brings rigor, clarity, and an exquisitely rare dose of real historicism to our understanding of these esoteric and social renegades. In a culture suffused with paranoia-for-sale, René Le Forestier’s work forms a revolutionary countercurrent.”
– MITCH HOROWITZ, PEN Award-winning author of Occult America and The Miracle Club
“In the annals of secret societies, the Bavarian Illuminati holds a special place in both history and legend. This book, better than any other, provides solid documentation on the order based on primary evidence and is therefore an indispensable source for any rational investigation of the subject.”
– STEPHEN E. FLOWERS, PH.D., author of The Fraternitas Saturni
“The legend of the Illuminati has cast a long shadow over world history--inspiring mystics, artists, and musicians. Now, at last, Jon Graham’s masterful translation of René Le Forestier’s exposé of the world’s mostarcane secret society opens the vault of the mysteries of the true Illuminati--for those brave enough to step through.”
– JASON LOUV, author of John Dee and the Empire of Angels
“The ‘Illuminati’ concept can be found on the lips of practically every conspiracy theorist today. It is therefore both timely and salutary that the world’s greatest study of the real, not speculative, Illuminati has, after more than a century, finally appeared in English thanks to Jon E. Graham’s superb translation of the original work by French historian René Le Forestier (1868-951). A vast work, evincing painstaking scholarship, Le Forestier provides certain evidence for every aspect of Adam Weishaupt’s creation of genius: a radical form of Freemasonry dedicated to establishing an egalitarian social order and philosophical principle. Now that Graham has given us the definitive English version of this classic, which includes an excellent history of early German Masonry, none but the willfully ignorant need loosely bandy about the term ‘Illuminati’ again; this vital text demythologizes the word itself.”
– TOBIAS CHURTON, author of The Magus of Freemasonry
“An impressive and informative study of how Adam Weishaupt’s original, magical, and humanist idealism bloomed into a powerful force that still affects many layers of Western culture today.”
– CARL ABRAHAMSSON, author of Occulture
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