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monstruous and most artful system of the Craft. Let not the reader therefore be astonished when he sees the Antitheosophist, the Atheist, the Materialist Weishaupt borrowing in this degree the doctrines of the Martinists on the twofold principle or double spirit. But let it be also remembered, that whenever, in consequence of this artifice, he is obliged to use the words spirit or soul, he informs the candidate, that such words are employed in the Code only to conform to the vulgar expression. This precaution taken, the Initiator may without apprehension repeat the sophisticated lessons on the twofold principle. And indeed one might be tempted to think, that the doctrines he lays down as the grand object of Free Masonry had all been copied from the Martinist system. He begins by deploring a great Revolution which had in former ages deprived man of his primitive dignity. He then represents man as having had the faculty of recovering his ancient splendour; but that by the abuse of his faculties he had again immersed himself still deeper in his defiled and degraded station. The very senses are blunted, and said to lead him into error on the nature of things. Every thing that he beholds in its actual state is falsehood, show, and illusion; and he lays particular stress on those schools of sages which had, ever since the time of the grand Revolution, preserved the secret principles of the antique doctrines, or of true Masonry. Nor does the monstrous Hierophant blush at placing Jesus of Nazareth among those sages, and blasphemously numbering the God of the Christians among the Grand Masters of Illuminism. But soon was the doctrine of Christ falsified, and Priests and Philosophers raised on these divine foundations an edifice of folly, prejudice, and self-interest. Soon also does the tyranny of Priesthood and the Despotism of Princes coalesce in the oppression of suffering humanity. Free Masonry opposes these disastrous attempts, and endeavors to preserve the true doctrine; but it has overburdened it with symbols, and its lodges gradually subside into seminaries of ignorance and error.—The Illuminees alone are in possession of the real secrets of Masonry; many of them are even still to be the objects of their researches; and the new Knight is to devote all his attention to their discovery. He is particularly recommended to study the doctrines of the ancient Gnostics and Manichæans, which may lead him to many important discoveries on this real Masonry. He is also told, that the great enemies which he will have to encounter during this investigation will be ambition and other vices which make humanity groan under the oppression of Princes and of the Priesthood10

The obscurity which enwraps these lessons on the new and grand Revolution which is to counteract the ravages of the former, is not the slightest of Weishaupt’s artifices. With respect to Princes, this is the last degree to which they are admitted. They are to be persuaded, that the antique Revolution was no other than the coalition of the powers of the earth with the Priesthood, in order to support the empire of religious prejudice and superstition; and that the new Revolution to be effected is the re-union of Princes with Philosophy, to overthrow that empire and ensure the triumph of reason. Should the serene adept be startled at his having sworn never to flatter the great, nor to be a slave of Princes, he will be reconciled again by the latter part

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of the oath, where he engages to look upon his domestic, civil, and social duties as most sacred. But let him form what opinion he may as to his initiation, he has nevertheless sworn, that he will protect the Brotherhood from superstition and despotism; that he will obey the most excellent superiors of the Order; that he will favour its progress with all his power, and that he believes it alone to be in possession of the secrets of real Masonry.

In the less important class of adepts, should any still hanker after their Theosophical ideas, that is to say, should Weishaupt despair of ever infusing into them its Anarchical and Atheistical principles, they are condemned to become stationary in this degree; and he imposes on them as a task the explication of all the Hieroglyphics of Masonry, which they may set to the tune of the grand Revolution. Under pretence of discovering a more perfect religion, he persuaded them that Christianity was at this day nothing more than superstition and tyranny. He has infused into them his hatred for the Priesthood and the existing forms of Government. That will suffice to procure him agents of destruction; as to re-edification, he has not so much as mentioned it to them.

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