Reader, give vent to your indignation. Ask again, What can this Weishaupt be? What are these adepts of Illuminism? Treat them as barbarians, as Huns, as Ostrogoths; but see him smiling at your contempt, and teaching his adepts to honour themselves by imitating, and glory in the hope of hereafter surpassing, the disastrous devastations of those barbarians.—Do you know in what light the illuminizing legislator views these northern clans sallying from their forests and desolating the most flourishing countries of Europe, firing its towns, beating down its empires, and strewing the earth with ruins? He complacently beholds the precious remains of the patriarchal race, the true offspring of Nature; it is with their hatchets that he means to regenerate mankind, and shape them out to the views of the Sect. I did not note the lessons of the Hierophant on this subject, when lecturing the future Epopt.—Hear the account which Weishaupt gives of these clans, when he pretends to historify human nature, at that epoch marked in the annals of Europe as a scourge, and called the inundation of the barbarians. Here is his description:
At that period when all Europe had fallen prey to corruption, “Nature, which had preserved the true race of men in its original vigour and purity, came to the assistance of mankind. From distant, but poor and sterile countries, she calls those savage nations and sends them into the regions of luxury and voluptuousness to infuse new life into the enervated species of the south; and with new laws and morals to restore that vigour to human nature which flourished until an ill-extinguished germ of corruption infected even that portion of mankind which originally arrived in so pure a state,” or those barbarians the pretended regenerators of Europe sent by Nature.
Such are the encomiums lavished by the Sect on the Goths and Vandals. You thought it would be offending this illuminized tribe to compare them to barbarians; whereas they glory in the comparison. History has described these northern clans as carrying every where fire and sword, as ravaging countries, firing towns, destroying the monuments of the arts, depopulating empires; their course is to be traced by ruins and wastes, and in their train appear ignorance and the iron age. But in the eyes of the adept this is not the exceptionable part of their conduct; on the contrary, it was by such means that they were to regenerate mankind, and second the grand object of nature. These barbarians leave the regeneration in an imperfect state; in time they
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adopt our usages and manners; they are civilized; the plains rise once more in fertile crops; society is re-established; science returns; the arts flourish under the protection of the laws; towns are re-peopled; the savage and primitive race, confounded among the citizens, is subjected to the same laws, and governments acquire their pristine lustre.
Here, in the eyes of the adept, is the grand crime of these barbarians; the Hierophant, deploring their fall, exclaims, “Oh had there remained any sages among them, happy enough to have preserved themselves from the contagion, how would they sigh after, and ardently wish to return to the former abodes of their ancestors, there again to enjoy their former pleasures on the banks of a rivulet, under the shade of a tree laden with fruit, by the side of the object of their affections! It was then that they conceived the high value of Liberty, and the greatness of the fault they had committed in placing too much power in the hands of one man—It was then that the want of Liberty made them sensible of their fall, and seek means of softening the rigour of Slavery;—but even then their efforts were only aimed against the tyrant, and not against tyranny.”
It is thus that the insidious and declaiming Sophister, but able Conspirator, leads the adept through the labyrinth of his lesser mysteries, not barely to imitate these barbarians, but to surpass their devouring rage, by constancy, perseverance, and the perpetuation of their devastations. Thus are to be explained all those questions on the danger of reconquering Equality and Liberty only to lose them again. Hence those exhortations “to unite and support each other; to increase their numbers; and to begin by becoming powerful and terrible—You have already done it, for the multitude sides with you—The wicked, who fear you, seek protection beneath your banners—Henceforward your strength will be sufficient to bind the remainder of mankind, subjugate them, and stifle vice in its origin.” 25
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.
