Progress of Enlightenment: A Brief Overview of the Practical Execution of the System of the Illuminati

freed from religious concepts, so that their forces were always active, and their reason could never soar upward; consequently, they had to grant uncertainty to the daydreams of humanity.

7. All intentions of the princes and priests aimed at keeping the slumbering forces of the people always in inactivity, so that they could never gain the upper hand, and thereby they fortified their hierarchy.

8. Superstition, religion, stupid mischief for laws, enthusiasm for blind reverence, fear of horror and the eternity of thought that does not exist—these were the bonds with which they fettered the reason of the people. In order to preserve these prejudices, propagation, before education, teaching, and everything were arranged to make sleepiness and inactivity true, because those who give [these things] could not know that these [people] alone are capable of transforming the inactive forces into active ones.

9. By a happy coincidence, the professorial chairs were stripped of those who created so much resistance to the new enlightenment; the religiosity of the new teachers vanished; the pleasantness of the new style of writing spread; books flooded the world and spread clearer concepts.

10. Various men arose who wrote against superstition and popular prejudices.
3. Voltaire was one of the most important, who, through his charming style of writing, drew the hearts of the people to himself and made religious concepts ridiculous. Many indeed followed him, but until now the enlighteners always harmed themselves with writings, without setting other forces in motion that could give the enlightenment a faster progress.

11. These thinking heads united, and, completely convinced that humans are only happy when philosophers rule, they seek to bring the great work into practice with united forces.

12. The great secret to achieving their purpose lies in the fact that they transform the leading forces of the people into active ones, and necessarily then Christianity, monarchs, and their constitutions of that time had to sink, so that they could set no counterweight against the rising force.

13. A thousand paths open themselves to the philosopher to reach his intention; our plans are to be concluded; most constitutions and types of government are corrupted and give us the advantages themselves into our hands to carry out our plan.

14. The remaining forces in the state are now princes, ministers, priests; these work

at preserving the old constitution. One changes these forces into leading ones, and the leading forces of the people into action, and we have the upper hand.

15. The execution seems to have more difficulties than it really has. Princes are humans and are rarely educated for government. Their ministers mostly care for their private interest; one should therefore change this interest and lead the rulers through skillful planning insofar as they [are] now, and they are insignificant beings. Puppets of our cleverness, whom we govern. That they do what we want, or throw them unnoticeably into a whirlwind, like an instrument 4 that has served our intentions and is now blunt.

16. Even if only a few of us work with equal zeal and use all other forces with cleverness as machines, then the revolution is made in all of Germany. Among us, their building will not want to work according to this great plan, which is raised upon the nature of the people. Form a spirit and build up your forces, for only the proudest in spirit has the right to rule over others. Every human has the right; even if he only wants, nature gives power and right. Look around; it alone shows you that in the universe only that rules which is superior to the others. The heavy outweighs the light, the stronger defeats the weaker; therein lies its eternal law. Nature follows this.

17. Do not be frightened by prejudices that make you shy, and through which we only gain bonds. Do not let yourself be deterred by deceptions and appearances of a conscience, which is only a middle-image of your imagination; all means are permitted to carry out the great plan. Consider, does nature not give you the instinct? Here it mixes pieces together, each gifted for millions under the rubble, everything according to an ultimate goal. This ultimate goal therefore sanctifies the means.

18. The friend of humanity can never be a friend of the quiet, says Mirabeau; those who have always been the true spirits of the earth and agents of nature cannot let themselves be used as an oracle for deceptive revelations; the worshiper of truth cannot enter into an alliance with untruth and darkness, whose consequences will always be destructive for mortals; he knows that the human race cannot be made happy unless one tears down the dark building of superstition from the ground up in order to build the temple due to nature. He knows that one [must uproot] the poisonous tree of