The Illuminati Returns: The Plot Against Civilization pp. 249-253

 

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from the Illuminati. For the last several posts we’ve been dealing with in-fighting between Socialists and Anarchists with the occasional Weishaupt reference tossed in. Mostly, the story has been about the failure of the Socialists to organize properly; but here we are, back to the original point of this book.

“The facts about this resuscitated order are very difficult to ascertain, for naturally they have been carefully kept from the public, and as in the case of the earlier Illuminati of 1776 every effort has been made by interested writers to conceal the existence of the society, or it must be admitted, to represent it as a perfectly innocuous and unimportant association.”

The ultimate contradiction in conspiracy theorizing of the super secret societies is that they are successful at employing their plans (provided you excuse the fact that we do not live in their alleged utopia) but absolutely miserable at keeping it a secret. For people in charge of the secret cabal that runs the world, they sure do like to advertise this fact.

Webster pulls a rhetorical trick that I don’t think has a name, “What we do know definitely is that the society was refounded in Dresden in 1880 – not 1896 as it has been asserted – but it seems that its existence was not discovered until 1899.”

The trick she is attempting to pull is that she is creating a false controversy designed to make us forget the nefariousness of the original claim. Surely this is true because people are arguing over the dates. Let’s take a look at another example of this from “The Holy Blood, The Holy Grail: “because the Templars were not founded until four years later in 1118. Or perhaps the bishop did not know the year of Our Lord in which he was writing? But the bishop died in 1115. How, in 1114, could he ‘mistakenly’ refer to something which did not yet exist?”

It’s a clever ruse in that it both shields the claim from proper scrutiny because we accept the numbers as being up for grabs. Numbers are almost never up for grabs so if they are, it means that the academic people are arguing over a true thing. It’s not quite a red herring.

The central question is whether or not the Illuminati was refounded in Dresden. We must establish that first rather than quibbling over the dates. So was it? Well, maybe. Webster gives us the name of Leopold Engel as the founder, being an author of a book on the Illuminati, however there is little evidence other than Engel that this happened. Engel is kind of a non-entity other than this writing, he was a Mason and was attracted to occultism because this is the late 19^th century and occultism was a fad in Europe.

I will grant her that he tried. Him, along with a man named Theodor Reuss, created an irregular Masonic lodge that they named “Illuminati;” but there isn’t any evidence that it lasted for more than a few years. Webster gives us the date of 1880 as the founding but everyone thinking that it was 1896. Reuss may have tried in 1880 but there is no source for the claim on Reuss’s Wikipedia page. Where the “controversy” lies is that we have two people who both attempted the same thing, and both of them kind of failed.

I can’t say why Engel’s didn’t work only that his attempt ended by 1903. Reuss was more of a weird nerd chasing fads. He would join Aleister Crowley’s group for a bit, a Rosicrucian society, a Gnostic group—it just seems that if it was an exclusive club and it was a bit weird Reuss was in. It’s odd that Reuss isn’t mentioned by Webster at this point because he’s a much better candidate as a villain.

We’re at 1880 where we are told that there was a resurgence of the revolutionary movement in Europe and America. There wasn’t any in America. The United States is still cleaning up from the attempted revolution of the Confederacy because they wanted to own people. I’m not quite certain what it is that she’s writing about.

Also, in 1880 a secret revolutionary congress was held, because the best way to keep a secret is to gather everyone together in one place. Surely no one will notice a large gathering of people and not think about asking them what they are about. Webster gives us a quotation about this congress which is not from a member of the congress but from someone writing about them. This is her favorite technique: using a secondary source while pretending its primary. In ancient philosophy we do this, but it’s always clear that we are doing so. We don’t have writings from Pythagoras, we do have Aristotle writing down what Pythagoreans told him.

Most of this is silly. She’s going through pedantic meeting bureaucracy so that we get bored and turn the page. I don’t understand why she includes any of this in the story. Just get us to the good stuff; what is the plan? That’s what we want to know. At least the two plagiarists of the Protocols gave us a plan.

More rage bait: “It must be candidly avowed Christianity is the bitterest enemy of Social Democracy…When God is driven out of the brains of men, the whole system of privilege by the Grace of God comes to the ground.”

I’ve mentioned this a few times already: Webster peppers these kinds of claims throughout this ostensibly areligious book. It’s supposed to inflame the reader.

What she ignores is that this claim is correct. There’s no disagreement between Webster, the actual Illuminati, and even myself. The problem lies in whether you support what the Socialists are attempting to do. The rigid quasi-feudal system that still persisted into the 19^th century only worked because religion—specifically Christianity—reinforced it. The socialist writers understood this, and so does Webster; it’s just that she likes this system where the poors know their place.