On the Order of the Illuminati

...compared to the secrets of Mithra Mithra: An ancient Persian deity whose mystery cult was popular in the Roman Empire. The author is likely referencing the secretive nature of the cult's initiations as a parallel to Enlightenment secret societies.; *) one might therefore suspect that Voltaire François-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire (1694–1778), a French Enlightenment writer and philosopher famous for his wit and advocacy of civil liberties. had some influence on Weishaupt’s foundation. But this is not the case, and this agreement was merely coincidental. Likewise, one might think that Weishaupt had modeled his Order after Freemasonry, as there is talk of Light, Freedom, and Equality in the former just as in the latter. But this is also not so. Freemasonry was completely unknown to Weishaupt. He did indeed claim that he had become a Freemason as early as 1777 original: "Ao. 1777", abbreviation for the Latin Anno, meaning "in the year."; however, this is unfounded: for at the end of the year 1778, as one sees from his letters, he still had no concept of this Order. What was written to him about it was new to him; indeed, he did not even know how to go about establishing a lodge. Even if he had become a Freemason in 1777, this could not have influenced the Illuminati Order regarding its foundation, as the same had already been established in May 1776. That similarity is therefore merely coincidental, and the Illuminati Order was, in its first beginnings, merely and properly a Student Order, in which the founder [instilled] the principles The sentence continues onto the next page with the word "principles" (sätze). equally detrimental to the State, Religion, and Morals—

*) Letter to d’Alembert Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717–1783), a French mathematician and co-editor of the Encyclopédie, frequently corresponded with Voltaire. on April 27, 1768.