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 banned by the edict of the Bavarian government (who banned all societies which kept their membership secret), and there was some scandal concerning his activities. According to Robison, he may have impregnated a woman and then procured an abortion, but that’s his assumption. He fled Bavaria eventually dying in Gotha in 1830. This is really all we can prove. Everything else is supposition, demonization, and glorification.

Webster is not going to be different. Immediately she ties in the Jesuits. To her credit though, she claims that Weishaupt was turned off by their order but then gravitated toward the French philosophers and the Manicheanists. The latter is a dualistic religion that formed in the Middle East around 200 CE. It concentrates heavily on the notion that there is a good versus evil struggle for your soul. What’s interesting about this religion is that they directly address the problem of evil by denying the omnipotence of their god and then placing “evil” as an opposing but equal force. As an atheist I think this is a clever but ultimately problematic when it hits the free will issue.

My assumption is that Weishaupt would have been aware of Manicheanism because he studied theology and St. Augustine was a Manicheanist before converting to Christianity. Webster adds, “it is said that he was also indoctrinated into Egyptian occultism by a certain merchant of unknown origin from Jutland, named Kolmer, who was traveling about Europe during the year 1771 in search of adepts.”

Her source is this book, which I don’t read 19th century French, but this citation is strange. So, if you go into the book, Weishaupt and the Illumines section is from 157 to 165. My French is rough, but nothing stood out to me as particularly interesting. Some frequent uses of the word “occult” but Occultism was in vogue throughout Europe at this time. The interesting thing about this is that the name “Kolmer” doesn’t appear in the section about the Illuminati. The name appears in the preceding section, in a section about the founder of the Order of the Knights of the Beneficent City; Schroepfer and this Kolmer person. Then Kolmer appears again in the section about an affair dealing with the Count of Saint Germain. Maybe Webster has made a mistake because her accusations don’t need this added Egyptian Occultism when she already has so much, but she could also be misleading the reader. Well, once is a mistake, if she does so again, we have a pattern.

One thing that really bothers me about this book so far is the inconsistency in citation. She cites more frequently than most, but then she quotes things without indicating where they are from or even who is saying them. For example, “Man… “is fallen from the condition of Liberty and Equality, the State of Pure Nature.”

This is from the paragraph on page 22 (PDF version) where she is discussing the Weishaupt-Rousseau connection. She says “he,” but that could be Rousseau, Weishaupt, or someone talking about them.

The rest of the next page is Webster’s reindictment of the philosophy or Rousseau, which to repeat from a few weeks ago, she doesn’t understand; through the mouth of Weishaupt. I’m currently reading Weishaupt’s book, and I will say that he would agree with some of the strands of Rousseau’s thinking, but most notably Weishaupt wanted mankind to divorce themselves from religion as well as the state.

An interesting note here is that Webster’s conspiracy influence is really unmistakable. She begins complaining about how these philosophers want one thing: a world without national borders so that people aren’t killing each other because of national identity. This is, to her and all of those that come after her, a bad thing. She calls Weishaupt’s wish “the purest expression of Internationalism as it is expounded today.”

Her description of the Illuminati as a group has a major problem in that it relies on Augustine Baurrel’s work. Baurrel’s book, which I’m sure I’ll have to do eventually, has historical issues—notably that it wants to place the French Revolution in the hands of the Illuminati, the Jacobins, and the Jews. The anti-Semitic world dominating conspiracy theories pretty much begin with him (the other conspiracy theories i.e. the Blood Libel theories are as inseparable from European history as cathedrals).

Most conspiracy theories will also throw the Jesuits into this. Webster is in an odd place because Baurrel is a Jesuit and the long section where Webster describes the Illuminati is about how they discriminated against Jesuits. It’s an odd contradiction as most modern conspiracy theorists will advocate a theory that has the one working for the other.

I think that her description is supposed to come across as nefarious, but it just sounds like any other group. Initiates are welcomed but not given access to the grander purpose until they’ve moved up in the ranks. That’s just how things work. I don’t have access to the budget at my school because I’m only an adjunct.

The biggest omission is, again, the lack of citations. She’s got a very long block quote that is allegedly the speech told to a member after they reach the rank of “Illuminated Major or Minor, Scotch Knight, Epopte, or Priest.” So…one of those. I’m guessing this is from Baurrel because he believed that the Templars were responsible for the French Revolution, and historically, the Templars in Scotland were ignored when the order was suppressed in 1314. This “Scotch Knight” label is the clue there—and while it could refer to any order of Knights with a relationship to Scotland, I’m way too warped by conspiracy theories to think of any other group than the Templar knights.

She’s got three more longer quotes that are clearly sourced from somewhere, but she isn’t telling us. This is a problem—even if it were Baurrel, that would be fine, at least we would know. The passages are very descriptive rituals that could come from actual Illuminati, but we don’t know. I do know she’s using Robison, because Robison cited the following letter and thought it quite scandalous:

“How far the founder of the Order had himself attained perfection was subsequently revealed by the discovery of his papers, amongst which was fond a letter from Weishaupt to Hertel in 1783, confessing that he had seduced his sister-in-law, and adding: ‘I am therefore in danger of losing my honor and that reputation which gave me so much authority over our world.’”

She neglects the rest of the letter where he is concerned that she might be pregnant. Her point is silly. She thinks this is a confession about absolute authority and perfection, but it’s really about his social standing. He and his sister-in-law banged it out and now he’s worried about being exposed as less than moral. A rather normal concern for someone in his position who at that time would have been very concerned about scandal. I think this falls flat, but I’ll say this: she’s building to something so we will have to see how that goes.