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Code of the Illuminati

Part III of

Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism

by Abbé Barreul

tr. by Robert Edward Clifford

[1798]


 

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This is the third part (of four) of Abbé Barreul’s massive polemic history of the French Revolution. This portion of this book is of interest because it contains extensive quotes from the actual literature of the Bavarian Illuminati. This is the most comprehensive work in English on the historical theory, structure and practice of the Bavarian Illuminati. It complements Robison’s Proofs of a Conspiracy, the other major contemporary account.

Founded in 1776, shortly before the American Revolution, the Bavarian Illuminati were a secret society with a revolutionary ideology, and a centralized structure. According to Abbé Barreul, they subverted the Masonic lodges of Europe, and were one of the key driving forces behind the French Revolution. New members were gradually initiated into the group’s radical ideas, which, according to Barreul, were atheist and anarchist in essence.

Barreul was very conservative, and his translator, Robert Edward Clifford, likewise. However, Barreul was a serious historian, even though he wrote from a decidedly non-neutral point of view. As a contemporary, he was able to view the primary source documents and interview participants. As such this book is today, in and of itself, a primary source.

Today, civil society in Europe and America has enshrined the ideas of ‘Liberty and Equality’ that Barreul thought would lead to the complete breakdown of civilization. The Bavarian Illuminati are considered by some to be the forerunners of the Communist and Fascist movements. However, as I have stated before, this is probably parallel evolution. The more paranoid believe that the Illuminati (or some equivalent, such as a cabal of reptilian shape-shifters) are still in business and manipulating, e.g., world leaders, the education system, and mass movements. But this is for the individual reader to decide… –J.B. Hare, May 11th, 2008.


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Part III. The Antisocial Conspiracy

Preliminary Observations

Chapter I. Spartacus-Weishaupt, Founder of the Illuminees

Chapter II. Code of the Illuminees

Chapter III. Of the Brother Insinuator, or the Recruiter

Chapter IV. First Preparatory Degree: Novice

Chapter V. Second Preparatory Degree: The Brethren of Minerva

Chapter VI. Third Preparatory Degree: The Minor Illuminee

Chapter VII. Fourth Preparatory Degree: The Major Illuminee, or the Scotch Novice

Chapter VIII. Intermediate Class: The Scotch Knight

Chapter IX. The Lesser Mysteries; The Epopt or Priest of Illuminism

Chapter X. Continuation of the Discourse on the Lesser Mysteries

Chapter XI. The Regent, or the Prince Illuminee

Chapter XII. Class of Grand Mysteries; the Mage or the Philosopher, and the Man King Part 1

Chapter XII. Class of Grand Mysteries; the Mage or the Philosopher, and the Man King Part 2

Chapter XIII. Government of the Order

Chapter XIV. Of the Government and Political Instructions for the Epopts

Chapter XV. Instructions for the Regent or Prince Illuminee, on the Government of the Order

Chapter XVI. Continuation of the Instructions on the Government of the Illuminees

Chapter XVII. Instructions for the Provincial

Chapter XVIII. Of the National Directors, of the Areopagites, and of the General of Illuminism

 

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MEMOIRS

ILLUSTRATING THE

HISTORY of JACOBINISM

Written in French by

THE ABBÉ BARRUEL

And translated into English by
THE HON. ROBERT CLIFFORD, F.R.S. & A.S.

Princes and Nations shall disappear from the face of the Earth . . . and this Revolution shall be the Work of secret societies.

Weishaupt’s Discourse for the Mysteries

Part III.

THE ANTISOCIAL CONSPIRACY.

Second Edition, revised and corrected.

London

Printed for the Translator, by T. Burton, No. 11, Gate-street, Lincoln’s-Inn Fields. Sold by E. Booker, No. 56, New Bond-street.

[1798]

This text is in the public domain in the US because it was published prior to 1923.

Title Page


Next: Preliminary Observations

Index

Preliminary Observations

p. 393

On the Illuminees 1 and on the different Works whereon these Memoirs are grounded. The third conspiracy, which I am now about to investigate, is that of the Atheistical Illuminees, which at my outset 2 I denominated the conspiracy of the Sophisters of Impiety and Anarchy against every religion natural or revealed; not only against kings, but against every government, against all civil society, even against all property whatsoever.

The name of Illuminee which this Sect (the most disastrous in its principles, the most extensive in its views, the most atrociously cunning in its means) has chosen, is of ancient standing in the annals of disorganizing Sophistry. It was the name which Manes and his disciples first affected, gloriantur Manichæi se de cælo illuminatos3 The first Rosicrucians also, who appeared in Germany, called themselves Illuminees. And later, in our time, the Martinists (with many other sects) have pretended to Illuminism. As an outline for history I distinguish them by their plots and tenets, and will reduce them into two classes, the Atheistical and the Theosophical Illuminees. These latter more particularly comprehend the Martinists, whom I have already mentioned in my second volume, and the Swedenbourgians, whom I shall mention in their proper place, where also I shall give what information I have been able to collect relating to them. The Atheistical Illuminees are the objects of the present volume, and it is their conspiracy that I mean to disclose.

The very numerous letters, books, and manuscripts, which I have received since the publication of my proposals, has rendered it impossible for me to comprise the proposed investigation in one volume. The baleful projects of the Sect and the laws for their execution are so strangely combined, that I thought it necessary to begin by making my reader perfectly acquainted with its code; that is to say, with the regular progression of its degrees, mysteries, and government.

This alone requiring an entire volume, I am reduced to the necessity of giving a fourth, in which I shall develope the history of Illuminism, and make

p. 394

an application of the triple conspiracy to the French Revolution. I have more particularly applied myself to the investigation of the legislative part of this conspiring Sect, as no work has yet been published in which the whole of their code is to be found. Detached parts only were to be met with scattered throughout the papers which had been seized by the public authority. These I have collected and digested; thus enabling the reader more easily to judge what has been and what must have been the result of such laws. In such an undertaking, I feel myself bound to lay before the public an account of the documents on which I ground my proofs. The following then is a list of the principal works, with a few observations on each, that the reader may form his own judgment as to their authenticity.

I. The first is a collection entitled “Some of the Original Writings of the Sect of Illuminees, which were discovered on the 11th and 12th of October, 1786, at Landshut, on a search made in the House of the Sieur Zwack, heretofore Counsellor of the Regency; and printed by Order of His Highness the Elector.—Munich, by Ant. Franz, Printer to the Court.” 4

II. The second is a supplement to the Original Writings, chiefly containing those which were found on a search made at the castle of Sandersdorf, a famous haunt of the Illuminees, by order of His Highness the Elector. Munich, 1787. 5

These two volumes contain irrefragable proofs of the most detestable conspiracy. They disclose the principles, the object, and the means of the Sect; the essential parts of their code, the diligent correspondence of the adepts, particularly that of their chief, and a statement of their progress and future hopes. The editors indeed have carried their attention so far, as to mention by whose hand the principal documents or letters were written. At the beginning of the first volume, and on the frontispiece of the second, is seen the following remarkable advertisement by order of the Elector:—”Those who may harbour any doubt as to the authenticity of this collection, have only to apply to the office where the secret archives are kept at Munich, and where orders are left to show the originals.” 6

Spartacus-Weishaupt, Founder of the Illuminees | Chapter 1

p. 400

There sometimes appear men formed with such unhappy dispositions, that we are led to consider them in no other view than as emanations from the evil genius, bereft by the avenging God of the power of doing good. Imbecil in the sphere of wisdom, such men are only efficient in the arts of vice and destruction; they are ingenious in those conceptions, skilful in that cunning, and fruitful in those resources which enable them despotically to reign in the schools of falsehood, depravity, and wickedness. In competition with the Sophisters, these men will surpass them in the arts of exhibiting error in false and delusive colours; of disguising the vicious passions under the mask of virtue; and of clothing impiety in the garb of Philosophy. In the den of conspirators they are pre-eminent by the atrocity of their deeds; they excel in the arts of preparing revolutions, and of combining the downfal of the Altar with that of Empires. If their career be ever impeded, it is only when they approach the paths of virtue and of real science. When Heaven in its wrath permits a being of this species to appear on the earth, it has only to put nations within the sphere of his activity, and it will be awfully avenged.

With such qualities, and under such auspices, was born in Bavaria, about the year 1748, Adam Weishaupt, better known in the annals of the sect by the name of Spartacus. To the eternal shame of his Serene protector, this impious man, heretofore Professor of Law at the University of Ingolstadt, but now banished from his country as a traitor to his Prince and to the whole universe, peacefully at the court of Ernest Lewis, Duke of Saxe Gotha, enjoys an asylum, receives a pension from the public treasury, and is dignified with the title of Honorary Counsellor to that Prince.

An odious phenomenon in nature, an Atheist void of remorse, a profound hypocrite, destitute of those superior talents which lead to the vindication of truth, he is possessed of all that energy and ardour in vice which generates conspirators for impiety and anarchy. Shunning, like the ill-boding owl, the genial rays of the sun, he wraps around him the mantle of darkness; and history shall record of him, as of the evil spirit, only the black deeds which he planned or executed. Of mean birth, his youth was passed in obscurity, and but a single trait of his private life has pierced the cloud in

p. 401

which he had enveloped himself—but it is one of hateful depravity and of the most consummate villany.—Incestuous Sophister! it was the widow of his brother whom he seduced.—Atrocious father! it was for the murder of his offspring that he solicited poison and the dagger.—Execrable hypocrite! he implored, he conjured both art and friendship to destroy the innocent victim, the child whose birth must betray the morals of his father. The scandal from which he shrinks is not that of his crime; it is (he says and writes it himself) the scandal which, publishing of the depravity of his heart, would deprive him of that authority by which, under the cloak of virtue, he plunged youth into vice and error.—Monstrous Sophister! he accuses the devils of not having skreened him from this scandal by those abominations which called the vengeance of the God of Nature on the son of Judah.—Then, impudently daring, he perjures himself; he calls every thing that is sacred to witness, that neither he nor his friends ever knew of the existence of those poisons or secret means of skreening him from infamy, much less that they had ever proposed, sought, or employed them. He challenges, and at length forces, the magistrates to prove the accusation; they produce the letters of the perjured Sophister, and therein we behold him entreating a first, a second, and even a third confidant, to seek, or cause to be sought, and to communicate to him, these horrid arts. We see him recalling promises of three years standing with respect to these means. He complains of the little success of his attempts, he accuses the agents of timidity or of ignorance; he entreats and conjures them to renew their attempts, telling them, that it was not yet too late, but that expedition was necessary. Who can paint the depravity of this single trait. How monstrous the being who could have combined such depravity! That the God who humiliates the Sophister should have permitted this single trait to have been brought to light, will suffice to show how far wickedness may be carried by the man who, with virtue on his tongue, and under the shade of that sacred name, was forming and fanaticising the blood-thirsty legions of a Robespierre.

Code of the Illuminees | Chapter 2

p. 408

General System, and division of the Code.

By the code of the sect of Illuminees I mean the principles and systems which it had formed to itself on Religion and Civil Society, or rather against all Religion and Civil Society whatever; I mean the government and the laws which it has adopted to realize its plans, and to guide the adepts in bringing the whole universe into its systems. This was not so much a code springing from an ardent mind, and an enthusiastic zeal for a great revolution, as the offspring of reflection on the means of rendering it infallible; for no sooner had Weishaupt conceived a plan, than he foresaw the obstacles which might thwart its success. Though he decorated the first pupils whom he had seduced with the title of his profound adepts, yet he did not dare unfold to them the vast extent of his plans. Pleased with having laid the foundation, he did not hurry the elevation of that edifice, which might have been exposed to fall for want of the proper precautions; no, he wished it to be as durable as time itself. For five whole years he meditated; and he foresaw that he should still have to pause for many a tedious day on the means of securing the success of his plans. His plodding head silently ruminated and slowly combined that code of laws or rather of cunning, of artifice, of snares and ambushees by which he was to regulate the preparation of candidates, the duties of the initiated, the functions, the rights, the conduct of the chiefs, and even his own. He watched every means of seduction, weighed and compared those means, tried them one after the other; and when he had adopted any of them would still reserve the power of changing them, in case he should happen to fall upon any that would be more disastrous.

Meanwhile his first disciples, now his apostles, gained him many partizans; he seduced many himself, and directed their conduct by letter. His advice was adapted to circumstances, and, artfully husbanding his promises, he kept the minds of his disciples perpetually in suspense as to the last mysteries. To his trusty adepts he promises systems of morality, of education, and of polity, all entirely new; and they might easily surmise that this future code would be no other than that of a morality without restraint, of a religion without a God, and of a polity without laws or any dependence whatsoever; 1 though he did not dare

p. 409

entirely to throw away the mask. But his laws appeared imperfect, his snares were not sufficiently concealed; and he was convinced that time and experience alone could perfect the work on which he had so long meditated. Such are the colours, at least, in which we see him representing himself when his adepts, impatient to be initiated in the last mysteries, reproach him with the slowness of the proceedings: “It is from time and experience,” says he, “that we are to learn. I daily put to the test what I made last year, and I find that my performances of this year are far superior. Give me then time to reflect on what may forward and on what may delay the execution of our plans; to weigh what may be expected of our people left to themselves or led and conducted by us.—Remember that what is done in haste, speedily falls to ruin. Leave me then to myself, let me act alone; and believe me, time and I are worth any other two.” 2

Let not the reader imagine that these meditations of Weishaupt alluded to the object of his views; that never varied; the destruction of Religion, the destruction of Society and the civil Laws, the destruction of property,—that was the point at which he always aimed; and this impious man too well knew his crime, not to be alarmed; we see him writing to his confident, “You know the situation in which I stand. I must direct the whole by means of five or six persons. It is absolutely necessary that I should during my life remain unknown to the greater part of the adepts themselves.—I am often overwhelmed with the idea that all my meditations, all my services and toils are perhaps only twisting a rope or planting a gallows for myself; that the indiscretion or imprudence of a single individual may overturn the most beautiful edifice that ever was reared.” 3

Of the Brother Insinuator, or the Recruiter | Chapter 3

p. 415

First Part of the Code of the Illuminees

By the appellation of Brother Insinuator, is to be understood the Illuminee whose peculiar office is to make proselytes for the Sect. Some brethren were more particularly instructed for that end; they might, indeed, be called the Apostles or Missionaries of the Order, being those whom the superiors sent to the different towns and provinces, and even into distant countries, to propagate its doctrines and to establish new Lodges. These had received, in addition to the common rules, farther instructions peculiar to the higher degrees. “These (as Weishaupt writes) may sometimes be the most imbecile, and at other times the most ingenious of the Brotherhood.” From the former he can depend on a blind obedience to the rules he lays down, which are never to be deviated from; and with respect to the latter, provided they be zealous and punctual, should they even transgress any of the laws, it would not be in such a manner as to commit either their own safety or that of the Order; and they would soon make amends for their indiscretion by some new artifice. But, whatever may be the sense of the Illuminee, he is obliged once or twice in his life to act the part of Brother Insinuator, and that with a certain success, by the acquisition of two or three proselytes, under pain of perpetually remaining in the lower degrees. Some Brethren of high rank may have been dispensed from this formality; but as to the generality of them there exists a positive law on that point. 1 To stimulate the zeal of the Brethren, the Insinuator is by the laws of the code established superior over every novice that he has gained to the Order: It is expressed as follows: “Every Illuminee may form to himself a petty empire; and from his littleness, emerge to greatness and power.” 2

Such then is the first duty imposed upon every Illuminee for the propagation of the Sect; and this is the part which first claims our attention, in order that we may be able to form an idea of the immensurable powers of Weishaupt for seduction.

This part may be said to be subdivided into three. The rules laid down are, first, those which are to guide the Brother Insinuator in the choice of persons to be admitted or excluded; then follow those which are to teach him how to entice into the order those persons whom he has judged proper for it;

p. 416

and lastly come those rules and arts by which novices are to be formed, and even involved in Illuminism before they are officially admitted.

In order to judge of the qualifications of the persons whom he may enlist, every Illuminee is to begin by procuring tablets, which he is to keep in the form of a Journal; and this is his Diary. Assiduously prying into every thing that surrounds him, he must vigilantly observe all persons with whom he becomes acquainted, or whom he meets in company, without exception of relations, friends, enemies, or entire strangers; he must endeavour to discover their strong and their weak side; their passions and prejudices; their intimacies, and above all, their actions, interests, and fortune; in a word, every thing relating to them: and the remarks of every day he must enter in his Diary.

A twofold advantage is to be reaped from these particulars of information; first, by the Order in general and its superiors; secondly, by the adept himself. Twice every month he will make a general statement of his observations, and he will transmit it to his superiors. By these means the Order will be informed what men, in every town or village, are friendly or inimical to it. The means of gaining over the one or destroying the other will naturally occur. With respect to the Insinuator, he will learn how to judge of those who are proper persons to be received or rejected, and he will carefully insert his reasons for the admission or rejection of those persons in his monthly statements. 3

The Recruiting Brother will carefully guard against giving the most distant hint that he is an Illuminee. This law is peremptory for the Brethren, but more particularly for all the Insinuators, whose success may often essentially depend on it. It is to them that the legislator so strongly recommends all that exterior of virtue and of perfection, that care of shunning all public scandals which might deprive them of their ascendancy over the minds of those whom they seek to entice into the Order. 4 The law expressly says, “Apply yourselves to the acquiring of interior and exterior perfection;” but lest they should conceive that this perfection even hinted at the mastering of their passions, and at renouncing the pleasures of the world, he adds, “Attend particularly to the art of dissembling and of disguising your actions, the better to observe those of others, and to penetrate into their inmost thoughts. “Die kunst zu erlernen sich zu verstellen, andere zu beobachten, and aus zu forschen.” It is for that reason that these three great precepts are to be found in the summary of the Code: hold thy tongue—be perfect—disguise thyself—almost following each other in the same page, and serving as an explanation of each other. 5

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