Origin Story: Proofs of a Conspiracy...pp. 77-102

This book is trying my patience. I was expecting conspiracy claims here and instead, I'm getting gossip stories about a nerd club that only existed for a brief period. It's frustrating because I was promised this book showed the Illuminati's secrets. I am beginning to think that none of those later conspiracy theorists have actually read it. Aside from the overall lofty goal of teaching the ideals of the Illuminati, the code names, there isn't a conspiracy here. There's nothing but a group that would be nothing more than a humanist activist group today. 

Gary Allen's book, "None Dare Call it Conspiracy" was boring, but it was boring because he went into tedious "detail" about how one rich guy knew another. This book isn't even that. While Allen and the John Birch Society are conservative conspiracy theorists, they seem to be motivated by a fear of communism. Now, I need to be clear; they are not afraid of real communism, they are fearful of the made-up version of Communism that they've created in their heads. The world in which Richard Nixon, is too liberal. This book comes across as just an old man yelling at a cloud. 

I've mentioned this feature before. Robison's problem in the beginning of the book was that Masonry was changing from when he was a member. Well, he never really was a member, he just hung out there a few times, new a bunch of people, but never got into it. Now with the Illuminati, he seems to be complaining that this new group, spawned from the membership of German Masonry, has ideas that he doesn't like. The abortion scandal from last week's post is no longer mentioned, just dispensed with as though Robison didn't try and muster moral outrage about it. It's so in the past for this book that I almost wish I hadn't written about it last week. 

This week he brings up that Weishaupt had promised to introduce the concept of materialism (the philosophical concept that we are made only of matter and nothing else) as well as explaining that atheism was friendly to society. Then, in Weishaupt's Apology, he claims that his opinion of teaching newcomers these concepts was retracted. Robison claims that this is a lie because Philo had to step in and prevent the teaching of "bare of flat atheism" at the lodge in Regensberg. Putting aside the concept of "bare atheism" my question is: why am I supposed to care? The point that Robison is making is nothing more than to shock is audience into realizing that the dirty atheists are about. 

The second moral shock is that, are you sitting down? You should sit down and take shot of some brandy before you hear this. Ok, are you ready? I'll quote directly from the letter from Minos to Sebastian that Robison cites:

"The Proposal of Hercules to establish a Minerval school for girls is excellent, but requires much circumspection. Philo and I have a long conversed on this subject. We cannot improve the world without improving women, who have such a mighty influence on the men..." 

The Illuminati was going to teach women! That's it. The entire reason that this letter is brought up is because they are planning on teaching women. The letter has some old time misogyny in it, but it comes across as downright progressive for the 18th century. Minos writes that women are fickle and may not want to keep with it. Also that the women would not be in charge of their school. Philo's wife would be in charge but he would be in charge of her. The interesting part of this is that the men of the group would be forbidden from being members of this group. I wonder if this was a suggestion to protect the women from the lechery of the men. The letter concludes: 

"Nay there is a risk that they may take it into their heads to give things an opposite turn, and then, by voluptuous allurements, heightened by affected modesty and decency, which give them an irresistible empire over the best men, they may turn our order upside down, and in their turn will lead the new one."

So there's a bit of forecasting that the women could take over. This is not presented as scary or a dreadful consequence by the writer of the letter. Robison just cuts it off there so I have no idea if this is fear or something the Illuminati were looking forward to. Robison doesn't even comment on it after presenting the letter, apparently just showing that they planned on teaching women should have been shocking enough. 

What follows is more tedium. There is a description of the ranks of the Illuminati from the lowest Preperation (this is the first rank) to the Greater Rex (the highest). Then a deep dive into the rank of the Scotch Knight (or Illuminati Dirigens). The Scotch Knight is to never bend the knee to another man, and his indoctrination into the rank is called the love-feast, and Robison provides a description of that ceremony. 

It's very boring. It's just the weirdness of Masonry married to the rationality of the enlightenment. If you like this kind of stuff, or are engaging in some kind of Illuminati Cosplay, read pages 80-87. It reads like the price of corn in Adam Smith, someone is interested in these details. I would be, if I were going to compare the claims of someone like Alex Jones to the actual Illuminati, but otherwise it's just trivia. 

Robison then details a series of questions that members are asked and none of these are objectionable. The questions concern whether the member thinks that a king's power could be abused or whether the emancipation of women would be a good thing. They stress the clandestine nature of the group and how their strength would be in recruiting members from all walks of life. 

I'm going to close this week's post with this final point. We've covered 28 pages today, but of that, Robison has barely written anything. What he's done is quote large swathes of this section with a sentence here and there introducing the quotes. In this respect, Robison is setting up the template that conspiracy theorists are going to use until the present day. Just cast suspicion on someone then cherry-pick a quote and let the reader do all of the work for you. On top of that, just carpet bomb them with needless details so that the reader loses focus and then closes with "and that's why it's bad." Sure the details of the dinner called "the love feast" were good to know, but it serves no purpose other than bewilderment.  Shameless self-promotion aside, Robison thinks all of this is proving his point, but I still have no idea what the point is. By page 102 he should have made it, all I know is that he doesn't like the Illuminati and doesn't like that they want to teach women.