The German Union: Proofs of a Conspiracy...pp. 126-128

I was all prepared to write about some historical context here. To spend an hour or so working on a brief history of the German states until their unification in 1871. I was going to talk about how it may seem weird to the reader that Weishaupt could flee Bavaria for the next town over and be in a completely different legal jurisdiction, but that's only because we view Germany as a single entity now. This week's selection begins with a new chapter titled, "The German Union;" so I assumed that we were going to talk about Germany. Instead, we're still reading about the Illuminati. 

What I have to discuss, is a meta-problem with conspiracy theories in general. The problem can be indicated by Robison's words, "Weishaupt said, on good grounds, that 'if the Order should be discovered and suppressed, he would restore it with tenfold energy in a twelvemonth.'"

I need to dispense with something right away, Robison is claiming that Weishaupt said this? No, unless Weishaupt was fond of referring to himself in the second person as the quote uses the pronoun "he." Clearly, Robison is quoting someone inside a claimed quote that Weishaupt made. 

The meta-problem is that conspiracy theories give their conspirators ultimate and unlimited authority and power--but only when it suits the conspiracy theory's need. We've read fifty pages of Robison calling Weishaupt a cheat, liar, and someone that was clearly full of himself--but now that we need the specter of the Illuminati to still exist, he's unambiguously truthful in both the planning and the execution in establishing the Illuminati again. What the average skeptic has to do is pin the theorist down with one question, "Which is it?" 

Is Weishaupt the Illuminati mastermind capable of bending men's thoughts to his will, or was he a charlatan? Is the Illuminati the omnipotent mastermind of the world's events or can they really be beaten by a guy on the radio selling alt-med? Either George Soros is so powerful that he controls elections and the courts or he's so weak that a nobody pointing him out can foil his plans? 

Historically, the Illuminati die when Bavaria outlaws them. It dies, because too many of the members were looking for the pageantry of Masonry without all of the education and goals. They wanted a place to hang out and cosplay like wizards. This was something that they could get at regular Masonry. The first few pages of this chapter pull a bait and switch. Robison talks about the plans of Weishaupt and his alleged communications with other people (I say "alleged" because unlike the previous chapter, Robison mentions letters without quoting them or providing a date and time); and then acts as though those plans have already happened. Perhaps, the planning was real--it is very possible that once kicked out of Bavaria, Weishaupt communicated with some people about rebuilding. In fact, this is not only possible but I would grant that it is very likely. The likelihood of planning such a thing has no impact on whether it happened. 

The evidence that Weishaupt presents for this infection of Illuminati; is that there was an arms race in the various religions over which could offer the most liberal version of their faith. This is a very telling statement, because the Illuminati conspiracy theory is always fostered by the generation's conservatives against perceived liberalism. As I have written many times in the walkthrough of this book, and the last book; Robison can see the growing liberalism in Masonry, religion, and society; and it must be the fault of someone or something that isn't just a general growth of society. As evidence of my position, "The freedom of enquiry, which was supported by the state in Protestant Germany, was terribly abused (for what will the folly of man not abuse) and degenerated into a wanton licentiousness of thought, and a range for speculation and scepticism on every subject whatever." 

Here, Robison is complaining that the government's support of knowledge and education was the problem because it led to people looking into things that Robison didn't agree with. It's the colonial period's equivalent of American conservatives who support the 1st Amendment but only when it comes to books they approve of. The very next sentence laments that the struggle used to be between Catholic and Protestant interpretations of religion but now, "had changed, during the gradual progress of luxury and immorality, into a contest between reason and superstition."

Robison is making a good case, but not the one he intends to make. The "problem" in Germany is that life became a bit too easy. It was no longer the perpetual struggle against starvation that it had once been. This fact, in turn, led to a bit more leisure time, and coupled with growing literacy and access to books...superstition begins to look a lot more like just something that older people told you was true. We saw this with the birth of the internet and the growth of irreligion. In that case, however, it was not just access to information it was also access to other people for support. In many places in the US, a non-believer is an enemy and people just faked it. Knowledge increases in times of luxury because people have time to not die. Agricultura in Egypt created the "Schola" class, which were the mathematicians and natural philosophers that allowed Egypt to dominate their region for a few thousand years.