by Moe | Sep 3, 2011 | Code of the Illuminati
p. 486
In that part of the discourse which remains to be laid before the reader, the Hierophant, insisting on the necessity of enlightening the people to operate the grand revolution, seems to fear that the Candidate has not clearly conceived the real plan of this revolution, which is in future to be the sole object of all his instructions. “Let your instructions and lights be universally diffused; so shall you render mutual security universal; and security and instruction will enable us to live without prince or government. If that were not the case, why should we go in quest of either?” 1
Here then the Candidate is clearly informed of the grand object towards which he is to direct all his future instructions. To teach the people to live without princes or governments, without laws or even civil society, is to be the general tendency of all his lessons. But of what nature must these lessons be to attain the desired object?—They are to treat of morality, and of morality alone. “For (continues the Hierophant) if light be the work of morality, light and security will gain strength as morality expands itself. Nor is true morality any other than the art of teaching men to shake off their wardship, to attain the age of manhood, and thus to need neither princes nor governments.” 2
When we shall see the Sect enthusiastically pronouncing the word morality, let us recollect the definition which it has just given us of it. Without it, we could not have understood the real sense of the terms honest men, virtue, good or wicked men. We see that, according to this definition, the honest man is he who labours at the overthrow of civil society, its laws, and its chiefs: for these are the only crimes or virtues mentioned in the whole Code. Presupposing that the Candidate may object that it would be impossible to bring mankind to adopt such doctrines, the Hierophant anticipates the objection, and exclaims, “He is little acquainted with the powers of reason and the attractions of virtue; he is a very novice in the regions of light, who shall harbour such mean ideas as to his own essence, or the nature of mankind. . . .If either he or I can attain this point, why should not another attain it also? What! when men can be led to despise the horrors of death, when they may be inflamed with the enthusiasm of religious and political follies, shall they be deaf to that very doctrine which can alone lead them to happiness? No, no; man is not so wicked
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as an arbitrary morality would make him appear. He is wicked, because Religion, the State, and bad example, perverts him. It would be of advantage to those who wish to make him better, were there fewer persons whose interest it is to render him wicked in order that they may support their power by his wickedness.”
“Let us form a more liberal opinion of human nature. We will labour indefatigably, nor shall difficulties affright us. May our principles become the foundation of all morals! Let reason at length be the religion of men, and the problem is solved.” 3
This pressing exhortation will enable the reader to solve the problem of the altars, the worship, and the festivals of Reason, in the French Revolution; nor will they be any longer at a loss to know from what loathsome den their shameless Goddess rose.
The Candidate also obtains the solution of all that may have appeared to him problematic in the course of his former trials. “Since such is the force of morality and of morality alone (says the Hierophant), since it alone can operate the grand revolution which is to restore liberty to mankind, and abolish the empire of imposture, superstition, and despotism; you must now perceive why on their first entrance into our Order we oblige our pupils to apply closely to the study of morality, to the knowledge of themselves and of others. You must see plainly, that if we permit each Novice to introduce his friend, it is in order to form a legion that may more justly he called holy and invincible than that of the Theban; since the battles of the friend fighting by the side of his friend are those which are to reinstate human nature in its rights, its liberty, and its primitive independence.”
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
by Moe | Sep 3, 2011 | Code of the Illuminati
p. 495
Eighth Part of the Code of Illuminees.
“When one of our Epopts has sufficiently distinguished himself to bear a part in the political government of our Order; that is to say, when he unites prudence with the liberty of thinking and of acting; when he knows how to temper boldness with precaution, resolution with complaisance; subtlety with good nature; loyalty with simplicity; singularity with method; transcendency of wit with gravity and dignity of manners; when he has learned opportunely to speak or to be silent, how to obey or to command; when he shall have gained the esteem and affection of his fellow-citizens, though feared by them at the same time; when his heart shall be entirely devoted to the interests of our Order, and the common welfare of the universe shall be uppermost in his mind; then, and only then, let the Superior of the province propose him to the National Inspector as worthy of being admitted to the degree of Regent.”
Such are the qualities required by the Sect for the admission of its adepts to the degree which in the Code is sometimes termed Regent, at others the Prince Illuminee. Such are the very words to be found in the preamble of the rules of this degree.
“Three things of the utmost consequence (says the Code) are to be observed. In the first place, the greatest reserve is necesssary with respect to this degree. Secondly, those who are admitted into it must be as much as possible free men and independent of all Princes: they must indeed have clearly manifested their hatred for the general constitution or the actual state of mankind; have shown how ardently they wish for a change in the government of the world; and how much the hints thrown out in the degree of Priest has inflamed their wishes for a better order of things.”
If all these requisites are to be found in the Candidate, then let the National Inspector once more examine, in his records, every thing relative to the conduct and character of the new adept, let him inspect the divers questions which have been put to him, and discover where he has shown his strong or his weak side. According to the result of this examination, let the Inspector propose some new questions on those articles on which the Candidate may have shown the greatest reserve. For example, some of the following: 1
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“I. Would you think a society objectionable, which should (till nature shall have ripened its grand revolutions) place itself in a situation, that would deprive Monarchs of the power of doing harm, though they should wish it; a society whose invisible means should prevent all governments from abusing their power? Would it be impossible, through the influence of such a society, to form a new state in each state, status in statu;” that is to say, would it be impossible to subject the rulers of every state to this Illuminizing Society, and to convert them into mere tools of the Order even in the government of their own dominions?
“II. Were it to be objected, that such a society would abuse its power, would not the following considerations do away such an objection?—Do not our present rulers daily abuse their power? And are not the people silent, notwithstanding such an abuse? Is this power as secure from abuse in the hands of Princes, as it would be in those of our adepts whom we train up with so much care? If then any government could be harmless, would it not be our’s, which would be entirely founded on morality, foresight, wisdom, liberty, and virtue?”
“III. Though this universal government, founded on morality, should prove chimerical, would it not be worth while to make an essay of it?”
“IV. Would not the most sceptical man find a sufficient guarantee against any abuse of power on the part of our Order, in the liberty of abandoning it at pleasure; in the happiness of having Superiors of tried merit, who, unknown to each other, could not possibly support each other in their treasonable combinations against the general welfare; Superiors, in short, who would be deterred from doing harm by the fear of the existing chiefs of empires?”
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
by Moe | Sep 3, 2011 | Code of the Illuminati
p. 502
Ninth Part of the Code of the Illuminees.
By the great importance which the Sect places in the last mysteries of Illuminism, and the many precautions it has taken to conceal them from the public view, I am compelled to begin this chapter with candidly declaring, that every attempt to discover the original text of this part of the Code has been fruitless. Such an avowal, however, should not disconcert the reader. Though the real text may be wanting, we have abundant matter to supply its place. We have Weishaupt’s familiar correspondence; we are in possession of the letters of many of the adepts who enthusiastically admired them; and the avowals are still extant of other adepts, who indignantly beheld such abominations. Our judgement will be guided by laws laid down by Weishaupt himself; and the famous apology of this monstrous legislator will teach us how to appreciate them. Such materials are more than sufficient to supply the deficiency of the literal text. It is true, that the crafty cant and affected enthusiasm of the Hierophant will be wanting; but the substance of his declamation, the extent and monstrosity of his ultimate plots will lose nothing of their evidence. Let us begin then by attending to their author, and from him receive our first impressions.
Weishaupt, when writing to Zwack, his incomparable man, and speaking of the degree of Epopt, wherein impiety and rebellion seem to have strained every nerve to disseminate their venemous principles against church and state, says, “One might be tempted to think that this degree was the last and the most sublime: I have, nevertheless, three more of infinitely greater importance, which I reserve for our Grand Mysteries. But these I keep at home, and only show them to the Areopagites, or to a few other brethren the most distinguished for their merit and their services.—Were you here, I would admit you to my degree, for you are worthy of it—But I never suffer it to go out of my hands. It is of too serious an import; it is the key of the ancient and modern, the religious and political history of the universe.”
“That I may keep our provinces in due subordination, I will take care to have only three copies of this degree in all Germany; that is to say, one in each Inspection.” He soon after writes again to the same adept: “I have
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composed four more degrees above that of Regent; and with respect to these four, even the lowest of them, our degree of Priest will be but child’s play”—Wogegen den schlechesten der priester grad kinder spiel seyn soll. 1
Before we draw any conclusion toward forming our judgment, let me recall to the mind of the reader those letters wherein Weishaupt declares, that every degree shall be an apprenticeship for the next, a sort of Noviciate for the higher degrees. That these degrees were always to be in crescendo; in fine, that in the last class of the mysteries a perfect statement of the maxims and polity of Illuminism was to be given. Und am ende folgt die totale einsicht in die politic and maximen des ordens. 2 After such letters, the text of these mysteries is scarcely necessary. I know that these degrees were reduced to two for the last class of the mysteries; I know, from the agreement made by the founder and his intimate adepts, that the first was the Mage, or Philosopher; the other, the Man King. 3 I will start from these data, and shall not hesitate to say, that this monster of impiety and of wickedness imposes on himself when he speaks of degrees infinitely more important for the higher mysteries, or when he pretends that those of Epopt and Regent are but puerile in comparison with those which he reserves for his intimate adepts. His execrable pride may flatter him with surpassing even the devils themselves, in his wicked inventions for sending forth the pestiferous blast; but their combined efforts could not suggest more hideous plots than those in which Weishaupt glories when calling them his lesser mysteries.—What! the vow of annihilating every idea of religion, even to the very name of a God; the plan for overthrowing every government, even to the obliteration of every vestige of laws, authority, or civil society; the wish of destroying our arts and sciences, our towns, and even villages, that they may realize their systems of Equality and Liberty; the desire of exterminating the greater part of human nature, to work the triumph of their vagabond clans, over the remaining part of mankind. These vows and wishes, these plots and plans, have already appeared in the lesser mysteries, and his adepts must have been as stupid as he wishes them to be impious and wicked, if they have not seen through the web that veils from their sight the baleful abyss. And, after all, it is not the object or the substance of their plots which is thus slightly veiled; the terms alone are concealed. There only remains to say, that all religion shall be destroyed for the adoption of Atheism; every constitution, whether Monarchical or Republican, shall be overthrown in favour of absolute Independence; property shall be annihilated; science and arts shall be suppressed; towns, houses, and fixed habitations, reduced to ashes, for the reestablishment of the roaming and savage life, which the hypocrite, in his cant, calls the patriarchal life. Such are the terms; and the scroll of this hideous pantomime needed only to be unrolled, to tell the names of those who were to appear on the gloomy stage of the last mysteries. The adept had long since inhaled the deleterious air with which Weishaupt had spared no pains to surround him; and could he nauseate this, or turn away from these disastrous machinations, the gates of the mysterious pit were shut against him. At such a sight nature shudders—The reader will cry out, None but monsters could
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
by Moe | Sep 3, 2011 | Code of the Illuminati
p. 513
At my outset I did not only declare, that the destruction of civil society was the object of their views; I did not confine myself to saying, that should Jacobinism triumph every Religion and every Government would be overthrown; but I added, that to whatever rank in society you may belong, your riches and your fields, your houses and your cottages, even your very wives and children would be torn from you. 21 I also rejected fanaticism and enthusiasm in my own and my reader’s name. I have said it, and adopting the simplest construction, do not proofs of the most extensive plots croud upon us from the very lessons of the Sect? Can common sense, nay can the strongest prejudice, refuse to admit such powerful evidence?
Let him who may wish to preserve his field, his house, or the smallest part of his property, under this patriarchal life, go back to the lesser Mysteries; there let him hear the Hierophant teaching the adept, that it would have been happy for man, “Had he know how to preserve himself in the primitive state in which nature had placed him!—But soon the unhappy germ developed itself in his heart, and rest and happiness disappeared. As families multiplied, the necessary means of subsistence began to fail. The Nomade or roaming life ceased; Property began; Men chose fixed habitations; Agriculture brought them together.” What were in the eyes of the Sect the dreadful consequences of this deviation from the Nomade or Patriarchal life?—Why the Hierophant hastens to tell us, Liberty was ruined in its foundations, and Equality disappeared. This Patriarchal or Nomade life is then no other than that which preceded property, the building of fixed habitations, of houses, cottages, or the cultivation of your fields. It was this beginning of property therefore, the building of habitations, the cultivation of lands, which struck the first mortal blow at Equality and Liberty. Should any one wish to return to the Patriarchal or Nomade life with such wretches as these apostles of Equality and Liberty, let him begin by renouncing his property; let him abandon his house and his field; let him, in unison with the Sect, declare, that the first blasphemy which was uttered against Equality and Liberty was by the man who first said my field, my house, my property.
It must be voluntary blindness, indeed, in the man who will not see the hatred conceived and the Conspiracies entered into by the Sect against titles or pretensions to, nay against the very existence of property. It will acknowledge none, nor can it in any shape be compatible with their explanations of Equality and Liberty, or with that primitive state of nature which no more entitles you or me to the possession of this gold or silver, or that field, than it does a third person.
Here it is not simply the question of establishing the Agrarian Laws, where lands, riches, and other properties are to be equally distributed among all; it is not simply to abolish the distinction of rich and poor; no, every property is to be destroyed, that of the poor like that of the rich. The first man who was weary of the Nomade, roaming, vagabond, and savage life, built a cot and not a palace. The first who furrowed the earth was in quest of bread and not of
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gold; but he nevertheless, according to the principles of the Sect, was the man who struck the first deadly blow at Equality and Liberty. Poor or rich man then, according to the doctrine of the Sect, the field you have recovered from the waste, and that you have cultivated, belongs to me equally as to you, or else to nobody; I, though idle, and inactive, am entitled to the fruit of your labours; I have a right to share those fruits which you have raised on the land which I left uncultured. Does not Equality disappear, whether it be a poor or rich man who shall pretend to be entitled to or say this field is mind, I have that property? If the poor man has a title to his property, has not the rich man also one? Treasures and palaces are no more property than the cot or cottage. Here an Illuminee spies want, there abundance; Equality and Liberty are every where banished; Despotism or Slavery is universal. Nevertheless, Equality and Liberty in his eyes are the rights of Nature, and he beholds them mortally wounded on the first appearance of property, when man became stationary. Poor or rich, you all imbrued your hands in this foul assassination of Equality and Liberty when you pretended to property; from that instant you are both involved in the curse pronounced in the mysteries; you are both objects of the Conspiracies of the Sect from the first instant that you dared assert your right to your habitations whether cots or palaces, to your properties whether fields or domains. But these cannot be the whole of the secrets; they are only those of the lesser mysteries. Weishaupt has revealed them to his Epopts; he reserves the grander secrets for his Mage and Man-King; then let any man rich or poor harbour, if he can, a hope of seeing the Sect respect his property. Or rather, let him behold the Sect at present pillaging the rich in favour of the poor. The last mysteries or ultimate conspiracy will take place; and then the poor man will learn, that if Illuminism begins by pillaging the rich, it is only to teach him that he is no better entitled to his property than the rich man was, and that the time is near when he will also be pillaged and fall a victim to the curse which has been pronounced against every proprietor.
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
by Moe | Sep 3, 2011 | Code of the Illuminati
p. 525
Tenth and Last Part of the Code of the Illuminees.—General Idea of that Government, and of the Share which the Inferior Classes of Illuminism bear in it.
It is not enough for the founder of a Sect of Conspirators to have fixed the precise object of his plots, the trials and degrees through which his adepts are to rise insensibly to the acquisition of his profoundest mysteries. His accomplices must form but one body animated by one spirit; its members must be moved by the same laws, under the inspection and government of the same chiefs, and all must tend toward the same object. Such a genius as Weishaupt’s could not be suspected of having overlooked in his Code so important a means of success. From what I have already said, the reader will have observed what connection and subordination subsisted in the gradation of his mysteries; how all the adepts of a given town formed, notwithstanding the inequality of their degrees, but one and the same academy of Conspirators, while each one laboured separately at the overthrow of religion and the laws in the state in which he lived. In this academy the Candidate and the Novice are under the direction of the Insinuator, who introduces them into the Minerval Lodges; these Lodges are governed by the Minor Illuminees, who in their turn are inspected by the Major Illuminees. Next to these preparatory degrees follow the intermediary or Masonic degree, called the Scotch Knight; and his power extends on the one side over the Major Illuminees, and on the other over the Illuminized Masons; or, in general, over all that part of the Order stiled in the Code the lower part of the edifice. After these we meet the Epopts and Regents or Princes of the lesser mysteries, and lastly, in the higher mysteries, the Mage and Man-King.
The aggregate of all these degrees forms a complete academy of Conspirators, and impendent ruin threatens the country where such a one exists. The Magistrate and the Citizen may expect to see their property and their religion annihilated. The Sect recognizes no country but the universe, or rather acknowledges none; the very term country is a blasphemy against the rights of man, against Equality and Liberty. What each member in his particular academy performs by himself, is performed throughout all of them by the Sect in general, and the combined efforts of the whole are regularly directed toward the concerted plan of devastation. The Miners have received
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their instructions, that each may bore his subterraneous galleries, and lodge the chamber of his mines in such a manner that partial explosions may forward the views of the Sect, without endamaging the grand chamber, which shall involve the whole world in the premeditated explosion of universal destruction. To produce this effect, general laws and mutual communications, common chiefs and directors are requisite. Each Conspirator, wherever his field of action may lie, must be certain that he acts in concert with his Brethren, that he will not be crossed in his plans, but on the contrary meet every where with support and corresponding agents.
Weishaupt was aware, that the farther the sphere of disorganization was to extend the more perfect should be the organization of his power. The more eager he was to call down universal anarchy, and make it take place of all laws, the more did he wish to establish subordination, and concentrate the forces of the Order, the better to direct its motions. To accomplish this, the oath of implicit obedience to Superiors was not enough. It was not sufficient for the adept to have blindly submitted his life and fortune to the despotic power of unknown chiefs, should they ever suspect him of treachery or rebellion. The Superiors themselves were to be bound by laws and principles common to all, that they might proceed in all points by a regular and uniform impulse.
It cost Weishaupt much meditation before he could perfect his plan of government as he wished. Five years after the establishment of the Sect, he writes “This machine of ours must be so perfectly simple that a child could direct it;” and still later he writes, “allow me time to digest my speculations, that I may properly marshal our forces.” 1
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
by Moe | Sep 3, 2011 | Code of the Illuminati
p. 530
Enlighten nations; that is to say, efface from the minds of the people what we call religious and political prejudices; make yourself master of the public opinion; and, this empire once established, all the constitutions which govern the world will disappear.—Such are the grand means, such the hopes, on which Weishaupt has been observed in his mysteries to have grounded his hopes of success. We have seen even the sciences involved in the vortex of his conspiracies. They were to be swept into the common mass of ruin with religion, laws, Princes, nations, our towns and stationary habitations.—Vandalism and the era of barbarism were to be revived, and science was to be reduced to that of the nomade and savage clans equal and free. This gigantic mass of destruction could be the operation but of a general corruption and perversion of the public opinion, which is itself dependent on science, or at least upon the reputation of wisdom and knowledge which he possesses who pretends to instruct us. To prepare the attack, therefore, it was necessary to make the sciences serve under the banners of the Sect in the cause of their own annihilation, and through their means captivate the public opinion in favour of the Sect. Its errors once triumphant, and every thing dear and sacred to man vandalized and overthrown; sciences would of themselves shrink back and vanish from before the man savage and free. Such were the fruits of Weishaupt’s meditations, such the spirit which dictated the laws given to his Epopts. This degree was to extend the conquests of the Sect over public opinion by science, or, in other words, to dispense its anti-religious and antisocial doctrines under the bewitching name of science. He entirely devoted his degree of Epopts to the sciences, and may be said to have forestalled them all, that he might usurp and dictate to the public opinion; or, rather, tainted them all, to make them subservient to his views; well assured that they would not survive the contagion. In his Minerval degree, it was the minds of the young adepts that he wished to pervert; but in his degree of Epopt, his means and views expand, and, under the same mask, he aims at nothing less than the perversion of the whole universe. He formed it into a secret academy, whose hidden ramifications, widely spreading throughout the globe, were, by means
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of the disastrous laws he had combined, at one blow to annihilate all society and the empire of science.
The plan may appear inconceivable, and above the reach of the most disorganizing genius; but let the reader remember how clearly it has been proved in the mysteries, that Weishaupt and his followers were firmly resolved to bring back the human race to the days of the Huns and Vandals, and, by means of this Vandalism, to all the ignorance of the nomade and savage clans; and to reduce the standard of science to that of the Equality and Liberty of Sans-culotism. Let the reader now condescend to follow me in the exposition of the lessons which the Sect has appropriated to the instruction of its Epopts, and the organization of their academy.
“The illuminized Priests, or Epopts, are presided over by a Dean chosen by themselves. They are to be known to the inferior degrees only under the appellation of Epopt—their meetings are called Synods. All the Epopts within the circle of the same district compose a Synod; but each district shall contain no more than nine Epopts, exclusive of the Dean and Prefect of the Chapter. The higher superiors may attend these Synods.”
“Of the nine Epopts, seven preside over the sciences distributed under as many heads in the following order:
“I. Physics.—Under this head are comprehended Dioptrics, Catoptrics, Hydraulics and Hydrostatics; Electricity, Magnetism, Attraction, &c.”
“II. Medicine—comprising Anatomy, Chirurgery, Chymistry, &c.”
“III. Mathematics.—Algebra; Architecture, civil and military; Navigation, Mechanics, Astronomy, &c.”
“IV. Natural History.—Agriculture, Gardening, Economics, the Knowledge of Insects and Animals including Man, Mineralogy, Metallurgy, Geology, and the science of the earthly phenomena.”
“V. Politics—which embraces the study of Man, a branch in which the Major Illuminées furnish the materials; Geography, History, Biography, Antiquity, Diplomatics; the political history of Orders, their design, their progress, and their mutual dissentions.” This last article seems to have the divers Orders of Masonry in view. A nota bene is added in the original, with a particular injunction to attend to this article, which the dissentions of the Illuminees and Freemasons had probably rendered of great importance to the Sect.
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
