On the Order of the Illuminati

principles original: "sätze", which he had drawn from the writings of French Sophists Sophists: In this context, the author uses the term derisively to describe French philosophers whose rhetoric he considers deceptive or overly clever. and German Enlightenment thinkers original: "Aufklärer", and had established as a secret. In this state, the Order would perhaps have remained: it would have shared the fate of other student orders, namely that those who belonged to it at universities would subsequently have concerned themselves with it no further, or that it would have been suppressed as soon as its harmful influence on youth had been realized. Since Catholic universities are not numerous and have little influence on the rest of Germany, this Order, invented in Ingolstadt Ingolstadt: A city in Bavaria where Adam Weishaupt was a professor of law; the university there was a center of Jesuit education before the order's suppression., would not have spread very far and would perhaps have found its grave soon enough right where it had originated.

But it was destined for something else: so that the great harlot should have written on her forehead the name: Mystery! original Latin: "ut meretrix magna haberet in fronte ejus scriptum nomen: Mysterium!" A citation of Revelation 17:5, suggesting the author views the Order's secrecy through a critical, perhaps apocalyptic, lens.; it had to gain more expansion, more followers, and members of significance, and thereby simultaneously more influence. This it achieved a few years later by means of its connection with Freemasonry, as will soon be seen. This connection, through which the most heterogeneous things were melted together, was certainly the rarest event imaginable. As the historical monuments of this Order The author is referring here to Freemasonry. demonstrate, it had indeed already deviated significantly from its original foundation for more than 300 years. Ever since it had spread among the French, which pre—