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The Mastermind: The Plot Against Civilization pp. 37-41

  “Here a curious point arises. Was Weishaupt the inventor of this system? We know that he was indoctrinated in occultism by Kolmer, but beyond that we can discover nothing…how is it that so vast a genius should have remained absolutely unknown to posterity?” Webster raises one of the most important questions in these types of global conspiracy theories. The question of origin is really important, who came up with this plot? For a skeptic this is a good question to figure out exactly how far down road the conspiracy theorist is going to kick the can. As of this writing, two days ago the Trump administration publicly claimed that not only did convicted sex trafficker and rapist Jeffrey Epstein kill himself but also that there was no list and no other documents related to his operation. I am not going to weigh in on those conspiracy theories (I’ll link to an article I’m going to write for a different site when it goes up); what I am going to talk about is one of the defenses that I’v...
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Suddenly Anti-Semitism: The Plot Against Civilization pp. 32-37

 Webster has given us our plot. It is this: The Illuminati, led by Adam Weishaupt, infiltrated the Freemasons and began overthrowing the European world starting with France in 1786. Why? Well, I’ve never actually read a conspiracy book that explained that notion even though it’s more important than anything else. When we left off last week, there was a meeting in which all of the secret societies: the Illuminati, Masons, and Martinists had met to agree to the plan. In reality, this meeting did happen, but it was about codification of Masonic history, the Illuminati were not invited (although Baron Knigge who was a member of both did attend). Webster wants to walk a fine line between condemning Masonry for these plots but excusing every Mason with a name. She writes that even those that disagreed and were horrified, still kept quiet. Which doesn’t excuse anything. If you see someone drowning, can swim, and refuse to help—you’re responsible for their death. All of these good people t...
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The Emancipation of Nesta Webster: The Plot Against Civilization pp. 29-32

 One of the more interesting (in a frightening way) aspects of the conspiracy world is how much they seem to hate women. This isn’t hyperbole either. Conspiracy theorists on the right-wing extremist side want to return the world to an idealistic utopia where the men are in charge, everything is earned by their own grit, and women have literally no place in that world. Poke and prod enough with the question: what do you want to see happen; and you’ll get there. This is especially the case now where you have the case for “trad wives” and the conspiracy world effectively dominated by alleged “alpha males” who view people like Jordan Peterson as philosophers and aspire to the ranks of accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate. It’s more open now and in our past books we haven’t really seen it either. The Protocols was written at a time when no one assumed a woman could hold a position of power, Robison is writing at a time where if voting was a possibility, women weren’t allowed to do it, and...
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Always with the Weishaupt: The Plot Against Civilization pp. 22-29

 Since I started doing conspiracy books (5 in total, not counting this one); I think I’ve had Adam Weishaupt come up in four of them. What I should do is write a generic version of the Weishaupt story and then insert it when it comes up. The only person that didn’t mention him was Kaysing, but I’m sure he would have gotten around to it. The most important thing to realize about Webster’s take is how influential it will become. I ask this in my class: why do we, in the 21st century know anything about a weird nerd club in an 18th century German province? The answer to this question is Nesta Webster and this book. She made it popular after everyone forgot about Robison’s claims. What we know that we can prove, is that Adam Weishaupt was a theology professor in Bavaria at the University of Ingolstadt. He was a student and philosopher of the Enlightenment. As such he wanted to form a society dedicated to spreading literacy, rationalism, and equality throughout his world. His order was ...
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Sands and Choices: The Plot Against Civilization pp. 20-22

 I want to say that I like Webster’s writing, but I also want to caveat that statement with a “so far…” It seems that conspiracy literature always front loads the good writing. My research into conspiracy phenomenon would support this hypothesis, and eventually this blog will provide the evidence for that conclusion. The conspiracy theorist has all this information, energy, and emotion to start. Then it just kind of peters out. Webster, coming from historical writing, is probably going to go the distance longer than someone like Kaysing or Robison (Cooper only wrote about half of his book), but I fear that she will eventually just start rambling. It’s too bad, because so far the writing is very good and I can see why this book had the impact it did. She’s still focusing on the French Revolution of 1789, and attempting to push the narrative that the Masons did it. She’s got nothing as far as evidence is concerned and she’s leaning on Robison’s dubious claims, but also a citation to ...
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Context: The Plot Against Civilization pp. 17-20

 We’re in the chapter titled “Illuminism” and we’ve only talked about the philosophy of Rousseau. I’m going to hazard a guess that the reason we’re concentrating on Rousseau and French philosophy is because Webster’s big book, the one she became famous for was about the French revolution. I’m not going to criticize; you go with what you know. Unfortunately, Webster, doesn’t really know French Philosophy, “ Even eighteenth-century France, with all its avidity for novelty and its dreams of “a return to nature,” never regarded the primitive Utopia of Rousseau in the light of an attainable ideal.” Even Rousseau didn’t think a return to a state of nature was a good idea. He was merely offering, as a thought experiment, where inequality came from. Webster is correct that Rousseau’s ideas never really trickled down to the common folk, but that’s only because of literacy rates. The ideas that the poor were only poor because the rich made them and are keeping them so; those ideas spread. Ro...
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And Here We Go...: The Plot Against Civilization pp. 15-17

 Readers new to my format: we are using the PDF page numbers found at the internet archive . Chapter I: Illuminism—The Philosophers—Rousseau—Secret Societies—Freemasonry—Adam Weishaupt—The Illuminati—Congress of Wilhelmsbad—Illuminati Suppressed Right off the bat this book is going to be much different. Unlike any other of our subjects, this book is the product of an educated person who is familiar, at the very least, with how a history book should be written. She’s writing this book in the very early 20th century, so it’s still got this interesting chapter heading format where the chapter titles are going to be succeeded by the list of subjects it’s going to cover. I primarily read philosophy (and fiction) we don’t do this. The few history books that I do have, don’t have this in such detail. It’s very helpful though—like a pre-index. It is a commonly accepted opinion that the great revolutionary movement which began at the end of the eighteenth century originated with the philoso...
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