Illuminati: Founder

Adam Weishaupt

Adam Weishaupt, 1748-1811, founder of the Order of the Illuminati.

Weishaupt was born and raised in Ingolstadt, where he studied law and attained the rank of Professor of Canon Law in 1772. Though educated by Jesuits and for a time a member of their order, he broke with them and became increasingly liberal in his religious and political views, favoring deism and republicanism. His interests were widespread, including an early fascination with aeronautics.

With the help of, and occasional fiction with, Bron von Knigge, Weishaupt in 1776 formed the Order of Perfectibilists, which later became known as the Illuminati. Although the Order was founded to provide an opportunity for the free exchange of ideas, Weishaupt's background as a Jesuit seems to have influenced the actual characer of the society, which was determined by an elaborate network of spies and counter-spies.

A year after the society was banned by Bavaria's government in 1784, Weishaupt lost his position at the University of Ingolstadt and fled Bavaria. He received the assistance of Duke Ernest of Gotha, and during the next quarter century lived in Gotha writing a series of works on Illuminism, including A Complete History of the Persecutions of the Illuminati in Bavaria (1785), A Picture of Illuminism (1786), An Apology for the Illuminati (1786), and An Improved System of Illuminism (1787). He died there in 1811.

Freemasonry Today, apart from their occasional appearance in a Monty Python sketch, or the popular theory that Jack the Ripper was one, Masons pass unnoticed by the general public. But this wasn't always so. In 1827, the United States witnessed the birth of a third political party. This had never happened before. The new party offered America its first alternative to the two dominant political groups. Like so many third parties to come, this one had a rather narrowly-focused platform. It was dedicated to countering the malevolent and subversive influence of the international cabal known to the world as Freemasonry. It was named the Anti-Masonic Party, and the Anti-Masons were well aware that theirs was an uphill battle.  America's first President, George Washington, had been a Mason. So were many other Founding Fathers, including Ethan Allen, John Paul Jones, Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin. Eight of the 56 signatures on the Declaration of Independence belonged to avowed Masons, as well as nine on the Constitution. In 1832, the Anti-Masonic Party managed to elect Millard Fillmore to Congress, but their candidate for President received only seven votes in the Electoral College. He was crushed by Andrew Jackson... who was a Mason. Freemasons claim that their group dates back to the stonemason guilds of the Middle Ages, some even say it reaches back to the building of King Solomon's Temple in 850 B.C. No one really believes that. It was actually founded in 1717 by a bunch of affluent Englishmen with too much time on their hands. The organization flourished and spread rapidly throughout the British empire; Masonic lodges appeared in the American colonies as early as the 1730s. A separate strain later popped up in France and swept across Europe. It was a fraternity of sorts, attracting the community's best and brightest. They would gather together for strange and secret rituals, swearing oaths of allegiance to the brotherhood and each other. Naturally, it became a place for negotiating business deals and the exchange of gossip. The fraternity was soon a major power center in any large city, and the international network of lodges constituted an immense, wealthy, and well-connected supragovernmental organization. As such, it took almost no time at all for the the backlash to begin. The Roman Catholic church was officially opposed to the group ever since 1738, when Pope Clement XII condemned Freemasonry and banned it from his faith. Catholics were forbidden from joining, under pain of excommunication. In 1825, Leo XII reiterated the ban and declared it to be permanent and everlasting. In 1884, Leo XIII called on each member of the clergy to get the word out and help defeat this insidious foe: We pray and beseech you, venerable brethren, to join your efforts with Ours, and earnestly to strive for the extirpation of this foul plague, which is creeping through the veins of the body politic. [...] We wish it to be your rule first of all to tear away the mask from Freemasonry, and to let it be seen as it really is; and by sermons and pastoral letters to instruct the people as to the artifices used by societies of this kind in seducing men and enticing them into their ranks, and as to the depravity of their opinions and the wickedness of their acts. In his encyclical, Leo pointed out that the Masons were in cahoots with the Socialists and Communists. Quizzically, he omitted the Jews. Perhaps it escaped his mind. Leo also referred to the fact that Masons believed in such demonic notions as democracy, free elections, the rule of law, and the separation of church and state. This opposition to Freemasonry persisted into the 20th century. Pope Pius XII hated them.  Freemasons suffered harshly in Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler firmly believed that they had been completely subverted by the Jews, as described in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. As he explained in his bestselling autobiography Mein Kampf, the Masons had been subverted to provide a mask of legitimacy for the diabolical Jew: [I]n Freemasonry, which has succumbed to him completely, he has an excellent instrument with which to fight for his aims and put them across. The governing circles and the higher strata of the political and economic bourgeoisie are brought into his nets by the strings of Freemasonry, and never need to suspect what is happening. Accordingly, the Nazis made it one of their top priorities to uproot the organization. The government seized Masonic temples, jailed their membership, and otherwise made life very difficult for anybody attached to the group. In fact, it was Adolf Eichmann's first assignment in the SS to track the activities of suspected Masons. The greatest dictators of recent decades have jumped on the Anti-Masonic bandwagon: Stalin, Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet (Chile), Salazar (Portugal)... not to mention all the conspiracy kooks. There are many who claim that the Freemasons grew out of the medieval organization known as the Knights Templar. Today, the Knights Templar exists as one branch of the interconnected organizations making up Freemasonry. When a new member joins, his initial ranks in the organization are referred to the Blue Lodge. This culminates in the designation of "Master Mason." At which point, the newly-minted Mason faces a choice: pursue either the Scottish Rite or the York Rite. Men who choose the York Rite eventually have the option of joining the Knights Templar. Why They Are Hated And Feared But why do the Masons have so many enemies? Historically, the group has been attacked for a variety of reasons. The Freemasons secretly rule the world. Or, more precisely, the usual claim is that the Freemasons are the visible arm of the Illuminati, who actually rule the world. The founder of the Bavarian Illuminati, Adam Weishaupt, was also a Mason. This fact prompted wide speculation that the two groups had been (or still are) working in tandem for a broader objective -- the establishment of a "New World Order." This notion is still widely believed, especially among the militia types. But how sneaky can this society possibly be, if you can purchase any of their tchotchkes through eBay? Last time we checked, there were 3,204 auctions matching the query: masonic,freemasonry,freemasons. In addition to the standard fezzes, aprons, trowels, rings, and printed literature, there's a seemingly endless parade of gaudy souvenirs: ashtrays, ballpoint pens, bath towels, beer bottles, beer mugs, bells, belt buckles, bottle stoppers, bumper stickers, bolo ties, bookends, bookmarks, bowties, buttons, candles, canes, cigarette cases, collapsible umbrellas, combs, commemorative plates, cufflinks, cutlery, decals, decanters, door knockers, doorknobs, drawer pulls, earrings, embroidered patches, figurines, flags, flasks, gavels, goblets, golf balls, hat pins, ice cream molds, jewelry of all kinds, keyrings, lamps, lapel pins, leather belts, leather wallets, letter openers, license plates, license plate holders, lightbulbs, lighters, magnets, medallions, medals, miniature replicas of the ark of the covenant, money clips, paperweights, pillboxes, pocket knives, polo shirts, postage stamps, postcards, potholders, radiator caps, rubber stamps, silver ingots, shot glasses, socks, statuettes, straight razors, sundials, suspenders, swords, teddy bears, thermometers, thimbles, tie clasps, tobacco pipes, tokens, travel alarm clocks, travel mugs, tumblers, wall clocks, wall hangings, watch fobs, windbreakers, wristwatches... Or, if you'd prefer brand new merchandise instead of hand-me-downs, try contacting any of the hundreds of retail sites listed in Google under fraternal supply. Almost all of them sell Masonic crap. Just keep contacting them until you find one that doesn't care whether you belong to a Lodge. The Freemasons are Satanic, or at least anti-Christian.  Jack Chick promotes this idea. Many fundamentalist Christians believe that Masons are required to pledge themselves to Freemasonry above and beyond their religious faiths. This would be a strict no-no for the Jesus freaks, if it were true. Which it isn't. But then, you can hardly blame them. We're talking about a bunch of people living under the specter of intergenerational suffering (according to Exodus 20:4-5): You are strictly prohibited from the manufacture of graven images resembling anything found in heaven above, within the Earth, or dwelling in the waters underneath the Earth. Neither will you bow down before such images or serve them; because, as your god Yahweh, I am easily excitable and will not hesitate to punish sons for the misdeeds of their fathers, all the way to the third and fourth generations. Which is also why the Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Better safe than sorry, especially when you're talking about eternal torment for you and your extended progeny. Some even believe that Freemasonry is itself a religion, whose deity is the pagan god Baphomet. The problem is, as any devout Christian in the organization will tell you, there is nothing Satanic about the group's ideology, rituals, or symbols. But the nutballs have an answer for this. The Masons don't believe that their group is anti-Christian because only the innermost, core members know the truth. Meaning: inside the secret club is another, even more secret, club. The Freemasons are controlled by the Jews. Already discussed that. Hitler, The Protocols, etc. Contributing to the sinister reputation are all of their freaky ceremonies. The Masons are very proud of their rituals, which have been copied innumerable times. One longstanding sore point for the Masons has been the plagiarization of Masonic ceremonies and symbology by Joseph Smith for his religious cult known as the Mormon Church. Smith was inducted into the brotherhood in March 1842. In May he produced the Endowment ceremony, which borrowed whole sections of dialogue from the Masonic ritual. This pissed off a lot of Freemasons, to say the least. Like every Mason, Smith had been required to swear an oath never to reveal the secrets of Freemasonry to non-members, under pain of death. Oh well. Evidently tired of taking crap from the Masons, the Mormons finally excised the offending elements from their ceremony in 1990. One prominent 19th century Mason was Albert Pike. He was an officer in the Confederate army during the Civil War, who later went on to become a big deal in Freemasonry. He wrote seminal books which are still read today by the Freemasons. He was also evidently a big fat racist, writing editorials in his newspaper inveighing against the Negroes and so forth. It is widely-believed but poorly documented that Pike might have been one of the original founders of the Ku Klux Klan. The Masons vehemently deny this, of course. Recognizable Masons Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary War traitor. Napoleon Bonaparte, French tyrant. Henry Ford, auto manufacturor, racist. Barry Goldwater, Senator. Jesse Helms, Senator, homophobe. J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director-for-life, homosexual. Houdini, magician. Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church. Brigham Young, another Mormon. Oscar Wilde, noted author and homosexual. Mark Twain, American author. John Glenn, astronaut. Samuel Hahnemann, started the Homeopathy fraud. Charles Lindbergh, aviator, racist. All seven of the Ringling Brothers. Colonel Sanders, fat fried chicken tycoon. Dave Thomas, fat Wendy's tycoon. Telly Savalas, player. Peter Sellers, pink panther. Strom Thurmond, racist US Senator. William Walker, advocate of Manifest Destiny. Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Britain. Aleister Crowley, the most evil man that ever was, 33rd degree. U.S. Chief Justice Earl Warren, head of the Warren Commission. Roberto Calvi, Vatican banker. Abraham Zapruder, filmed John F. Kennedy assassination. Masons had an impressive (and to some, alarming) role in the founding the United States, including most of the critical Founding Fathers: George Washington John Hancock. Patrick Henry, Give me Liberty or give me Death. Some claim that he was never a Mason. Benjamin Franklin, inventor, printer, diplomat, patriot, womanizer. Arguably the most accomplished American that has ever lived. Paul Revere Ethan Allen Thomas Jefferson, likely a Mason. Additional Presidents who were Masons Gerald Ford William McKinley, assassinated by an anarchist. James Garfield, assassinated President. Theodore Roosevelt Franklin D. Roosevelt Harry S Truman Warren G. Harding William Howard Taft, the fattest President. Andrew Johnson, the first impeached President. James Monroe Andrew Jackson James Knox Polk James Buchanan, the only bachelor US President. Lyndon B. Johnson was a first degree Mason. Ronald Reagan was an honorary Scottish Rite Mason, but not a Freemason. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bilderberg: by Charles Overbeck Matrix Editor easterisle@parascope.com The date is May 14, 1998. The attendees -- 120 representatives of the Western political, financial and corporate elite -- cruise through the untamed Scottish countryside in black limousines on their way to the swank Turnberry Hotel in Ayrshire. The discussions they will engage in, and the consensus they reach, will influence the course of Western civilization and the future of the entire planet. This meeting will take place behind closed doors in total secrecy, protected by a phalanx of armed guards. The Bilderberg is about to get busy once again. According to a Bilderberg Society press release, the 46th Bilderberg meeting was an informal discussion "to discuss the Atlantic relationship in a time of change. Among others the Conference will discuss NATO, Asian Crisis, EMU, Growing Military Disparity, Japan, Multilateral Organizations, Europe's social model, Turkey, EU/US Market Place [sic]." Those who attend Bilderberg meetings do so in a private rather than official capacity. From former CIA director John Deutch to New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, each guest attendee is hand-picked by the Bilderberg's organizing committee to join in secret deliberations about the propagation of Western hegemony in the New World Order. All Bilderberg discussions are conducted in absolute secrecy. To guarantee solitude, the Group customarily books an entire hotel in a secluded location. The hotel is protected by a tight security grid of heavily armed guards from the U.S. Secret Service, various European secret service agencies and the local police. Although some reporters and many media owners are present at these meetings, you will hear nothing about the Bilderberg in the news. According to the Bilderberg's press release, "Participants have agreed not to give interviews to the press during the meeting. In contacts with the news media after the conference it is an established rule that no attribution should be made to individual participants of what was discussed during the meeting." A source close to the Turnberry conference told The Scotsman: "I cannot comment officially on whether this is a conference of the Bilderberg group... This is a strictly private non-governmental conference, one of a series of such meetings. Their purpose is the discuss most informally and confidentially topics of current concern to the democracies of Europe and America." Bilderberg proponents argue that this cloak of secrecy is vital to ensuring an honest and vigorous debate. "Some of the delegates are politicians, but everyone is here privately," the Turnberry conference source told The Scotsman. "It inspires frothing at the mouth of conspiracy theories, but the purpose of the privacy is to allow delegates to have a frank and constructive debate and get to the heart of things knowing that they are not going to be reported." Of course, this secrecy also guarantees that the vast majority of the world's citizenry is kept completely in the dark regarding Bilderberg deliberations, even though the consensus of the Group may affect national and international government and commerce. The extremes to which the Bilderberg goes to achieve this level of secrecy raises serious suspicions about the Group's motives in the minds of many. Critics of the Bilderberg say: The Group perceives itself as being supra-governmental. Indeed, Bilderberg founder Prince Bernhard himself once said, "It is difficult to re-educate people who have been brought up on nationalism to the idea of relinquishing part of their sovereignty to a supra-national body." (Alden Hatch, H. R. H. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands: An Authorized Biography, G. G. Harrap & Co. [London], 1962.) The Group coercively manipulates global finances and establishes rigid and binding monetary rates around the world. The Group selects political figures whom the Bilderberg determines should become rulers, and targets those whom it wants removed from power. Rather than pursuing an agenda which would work to solve global health, energy, environmental and agricultural problems, the Group pursues an agenda which guarantees the propagation of its own power and the enrichment of its members, at the expense of human rights and environmental degradation worldwide. As Bilderberg critic Tony Gosling wrote, "One cannot help but be a little suspicious when priorities for the future of mankind are being considered, by those who have real influence over that future, in total secret." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kights of Malta:  In a Crop of Corporate Dramas, Knights of Malta are Everywhere   Newsgroups: rec.heraldry View: Complete Thread (2 articles) | Original Format Date: 1995/04/29 Transmitted: 95-04-20 23:04:20 EDT (B342254)Business Week: May 1, 1995 Department: News: Analysis & Commentary THE KNIGHTS OF BUSINESS In a crop of corporate dramas, Knights of Malta are everywhere When W.R. Grace & Co. Chief Executive J.P. Bolduc sensed a few months ago that his strained relations with Chairman J. Peter Grace were putting his job in jeopardy, he took his case to a rather unorthodox authority: John Cardinal O'Connor, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York. At Bolduc's request, the cardinal asked Grace to patch things up, hoping to avoid the scandals and the corporate upheaval that have since cost both men their jobs. Grace rebuffed the advice, say sources close to the company; Grace, Bolduc, and the cardinal won't comment. But why did O'Connor even attempt to referee a boardroom blowup at W.R. Grace, a publicly held chemicals giant? Grace, Bolduc, and three other company directors--former Fidelity mutual fund whiz Peter Lynch, former Borden CEO Eugene Sullivan, and former University of Notre Dame administrator James Frick--all are Knights of Malta, an elite, secretive, Catholic lay order that counts O'Connor as its spiritual leader in the U.S. The knights trace their history back some 900 years, to a band of warrior-monks who tended to the injured during the Crusades. Though the order has only about 2,600 U.S. members, several have played roles in recent high-profile corporate meltdowns. William J. Agee, ousted in February as CEO of Morrison Knudsen Corp., is a member, as are his wife, Mary Cunningham Agee, and at least two directors, Lynch and headhunter Gerard R. Roche. The boards of both Grace and Morrison Knudsen have come under fire for not living up to their duties to shareholders. At Morrison Knudsen, the board was widely criticized for allowing the company to deteriorate for years without replacing a poor-performing CEO. Grace's board was criticized as being too cozy with the Grace family, which long enjoyed rich company-provided perks. And when Bolduc resigned on Mar. 2, amid sexual-harassment allegations he denies, the board was criticized again for paying out million in separation benefits. The issue in these situations is not religion; nor is it, per se, the Knights of Malta, a benevolent group devoted to charitable works. Rather, the question is whether such close ties among a network of influential executives have affected business decisions. ``What does membership mean?'' asks activist shareholder Robert A.G. Monks. ``With very close bonds [as] Knights of Malta, the board as a group may have loyalty to themselves instead of the shareholders.'' ``SELECT COMPANY.'' Prominent knights dot the business and political landscapes. Lee A. Iacocca, a knight for decades, is part of a bid by investor Kirk Kerkorian to take over Chrysler Corp., whose directors include at least one other knight--former Health, Education & Welfare Secretary Joseph A. Califano. Other knights include Domino's Pizza founder Thomas Monaghan, Chase Manhattan CEO Thomas Labrecque, and public-relations maven Robert Dilenschneider, who counts W.R. Grace as a client. Well-known columnists Michael Novak and William F. Buckley Jr. are knights. So is Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), along with former Cabinet Secretaries William Simon and Alexander Haig. The knights also figure prominently on the board of Ingersoll-Rand Co., which recently agreed to acquire Clark Equipment Co. Peter Grace is a director emeritus at Ingersoll-Rand, and knights Theodore Black and Joseph Flannery serve on the board. Former Ingersoll-Rand CEO Thomas A. Holmes, while not a knight, is now the acting CEO at Grace. In Europe, it takes four generations of noble ancestry to become a knight. In the New World, though, the rules for admission are somewhat relaxed by necessity. Still, being inducted is a big deal. ``You're joining select company,'' says Iacocca. Knights are asked to make regular pilgrimages to Lourdes, a holy site for Catholics, and to be active volunteers in charity work. Joining ``had nothing to do with business,'' says recent inductee Richard Torrenzano, former spokesman for the New York Stock Exchange who now runs his own firm. ``It was an opportunity to really do something substantial for people in need.'' EVEN COZIER? But to some critics, the links between knights reinforce complaints that boards are too frequently chummy, nonconfrontational clubs. ``When board members have other allegiances [tying them] together, it may make it difficult for them to be objective in doing their job in an independent fashion,'' says Harvard business school Professor Jay W. Lorsch. The problem is not being a Knight of Malta, Lorsch notes. Rather, any common membership in an exclusive group can indicate personal ties between some directors and the CEO that should be publicly disclosed. ``Public shareholders have the right to know what the connections on that board are,'' Lorsch says. Simon, for one, would like to see the knights become even more of a force: ``There is a close bond when you meet knights in other parts of the U.S. [and] obviously a camaraderie. But [we're] not as close as I'd like to see.'' In the boardroom, that may not be desirable. Clearly, the ties that bind the knights weren't strong enough to prevent Bolduc or Agee from losing their jobs. But the camaraderie instilled by the Knights of Malta may have affected the speed and character of directors' decisions--and that may have cost their shareholders dearly. THE MALTESE CONNECTION A partial corporate directory of the American knights W.R. GRACE J. PETER GRACE Longtime chairman will resign May 11 J.P. BOLDUC Former CEO PETER LYNCH Director HUGH CAREY Executive ROBERT DILENSCHNEIDER Public-relations counsel MORRISON KNUDSEN WILLIAM AGEE & MARY CUNNINGHAM AGEE Former chairman and CEO and his wife PETER LYNCH Director GERARD ROCHE Director CHRYSLER LEE IACOCCA Former chairman JOSEPH CALIFANO Director INGERSOLL-RAND THEODORE BLACK Former CEO, now a director JOSEPH FLANNERY Director J. PETER GRACE Director emeritus By Elizabeth Lesly in New York ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://users.bigpond.net.au/trt/Illuminati-NWO.htm - now you should be ready to go here and follow the trails of manylinks....have fun.