The Mysterious Adam Weishaupt: Proofs of a Conspiracy...pp. 46-47

 "I AM (sic) now arrived at what I should call the great epoch of Cosmo-politism, the scheme communicated to Baron Knigge by the Marchese di Constanza."

We've had an entire chapter that has failed to illuminate a global conspiracy that seeks to upend the rule of religion and monarchy in Europe. This is depressing for two reasons: A) it's the title of the book and why we are reading the damn thing to begin with. B) this book plays the role of the original foundation for these types of conspiracy theories. Our last book, Allen's "None Dare Call it Conspiracy" cites it, Nesta Webster cites it (Nazi sympathizer and conspiracist), in fact: without this book, this type of conspiracy has no English language foundation (there is a French book by Augustin Baurrel that would also serve). So where is my damn conspiracy theory? 

It might just live here. This week's selection begins chapter 2, titled "The Illuminati." Ok, this means we are in right? Well...no. Not necessarily. If this were any other book I would be ready for the conspiracy theory to start. The problem for us is that Robison is writing in the 18th century and he, in his travels, could literally have met Illuminati members. The actual Illuminati members. I've mentioned this already in this book and in the last book that we read; the Illuminati were just a nerd club for what we would call skeptics today. They were cosplayers and the founder used to call himself "Brother Spartacus." It's kind of embarrassing, but I would love to know what the founder would think of their reputation today.  

The story so far is that there were schisms in European masonry. One of the people taken in by the more eclectic sects of Masonry was the wealthy Baron Knigge. He was duped a bit by the occultism and the ties to the Templar Knights. Here is why I hate this book a little: the entire first fifty pages was to set up Baron Knigge as an important character. What we didn't need were fifty pages to do that. It helps no one because the writing is very dry, to begin with so the average reader is going to be turned off by the time he even begins to talk about the problems in French Masonry. Yes, attention spans were different in an age where the winter meant there was nothing to do but travel to the outhouse, but people are still people. Boring writing, when you are promised the illumination of the global conspiracy, is still going to get the book closed and never opened again. 

The lodge that Baron Knigge was a member of "Lodge Theodore" was interested in publishing documents on matters of economics, statistics and political matters. This made it a bit of an odd lodge for Masonry that kept everything in house, but one of the members of this lodge was none other than the man, the myth, the legend: Adam Weishaupt. It can truly be said that the cliche I've attached to him is not a cliche. He's literally all three of these things. A man, in that he existed. The myth in that this book was written about him, and he's alleged to be responsible for the history of the world from this point onward. A legend, in that it's hard to pin down the truth from the fiction. It's so hard in fact, that I can't trust any source that speaks about him without triple verifying all of the sources and facts. I teach a section of my conspiracy theory course on the Illuminati and I have to admit that there are very few things that I can say with concrete authority that are true. So, for this book, I am going to take Robison at face value.

Robison gives us some quick biographical information about Weishaupt. First, he was a professor of Canon law at the University of Ingolstadt. Anyone that mentioned Weishaupt by name will admit this fact. Even detractors that are going to claim he was part of the meeting that gave birth to the "protocols" claim this of him. Robison claims that he was educated by the Jesuits but that, "the abolition of their order made him change his views, and from being their pupil, he became their most bitter enemy."

I don't quite understand what this means unless Robison is using an antiquated version of the word "abolition." There are still Jesuits. I was educated by Franciscans and our bitter high school rival was a Jesuit school. Robison mentions that the Weishaupt had a good reputation in his profession as well. Now, this is one of those tricky claims. Accounts differ, but I've read that he was something of a prodigy and attained his professorship at a young age. The reputation brought students from surrounding areas to Ingolstadt. This reminds me of Adam Smith, who used to draw students from Oxford to Edinburgh which amused him because he hated Oxford. 

Weishaupt took to the new Masonry's doctrines and preached the values of Deism, Infidelity, and Atheism. The use of "infidelity" here is antiquated--it doesn't mean that he preached adultery but that a person did not owe to the lord of the land by virtue of birth. 

As a teacher that sometimes covers religious issues, this line from Robison strikes me, "I imagine that requires the most anxious care of the public teacher to keep the minds of his audience impressed with the reality and importance of the great truths of religion, while he frees them from the shackles of blind and absurd superstition."

There is a delicate balancing act that takes place for me when I cover religion. Though it's not what Robison thinks, it's not the great truths of religion, because there aren't any. The balance that I have to strike is between not offending the religious people while still offering the arguments that do not line up strictly with their religion. Religious people get offended easily, we atheists, sure, some of us can be quite insufferable. Though, we aren't protesting when the right words don't appear on a coffee cup that we are going to throw in the garbage later. Tell a room full of evangelicals that morality is based on what you do rather than what you believe and all of the sudden: it's religious discrimination. Tell them that their holy book is wrong about facts concerning the natural world and then you spend an entire week fielding the "well that's a metaphor" apologetic that only crops up when the book is wrong. Then your course evaluations are accusing you of being too religious for some reason (which is funny because of my atheism--but a very devout Catholic colleague of mine was accused of pushing atheism on her students because she criticized the design argument). 

Weishaupt had none of this anxiety so he preached his Deism to a willing crowd getting revenge on the Jesuits that he hated so much. He still hasn't created the Illuminati so it's probably related to that. We will find out. 

What's interesting here is that we are putting two conspiracist boogey men against each other: Adam Weishaupt and the Jesuits. Nesta Webster, I believe, has them working together to cause the French Revolution.