Stauffer's "New England and the Bavarian Illuminati"

Was googling around and found this part of the above workThe European Illuminati

The writting looks pretty balanced, leveling criticism at Weishaupt:

On his part, Weishaupt did not scruple to furnish Ickstatt's successor, Lori, with secret reports calculated to put the Jesuit professors in the university in an unfavorable light. A disagreeable squabble resulted, marked on the one hand by clerical jealousy and pettiness and on the other by Weishaupt's imprudence of speech. and indifference to considerations of professional honor.

Here, also, were ready solvents for the doubts with which his experience with Jesuit teachers had filled his mind. The enthusiasm of the most susceptible of neophytes seized him: he would make proselytes, he would deliver others from their bondage to outworn beliefs, he would make it his duty to rescue men from the errors into which the race had long been plunged. His object in life thus early determined

Seems rather a stretch tho, no, to say that becuase the library of his youth had liberal works that therefore was a zealous liberal radical in his youth.

I like the working of the books and ideas being 'ready solvents for the doubts' which filled his mind. Good prose.

The effect of this unseemly strife upon Weishaupt was to establish firmly in his mind the conviction that as the university's most influential leader against the cause of ecclesiastical obscurantism he was being made a martyr for free speech.[...] A secret association was needed which, growing more and more powerful through the increase of its members and their progress in enlightenment, should be able to outwit the manoeuvres of the enemies of reason not only in Ingolstadt but throughout the world.

And this is an unusual analysis of how the illuminati get started.

His imagination having taken heat from his reflections upon the attractive power of the Eleusinian mysteries and the influence exerted by the secret cult of the Pythagoreans, it was first in Weishaupt's thought to seek in the Masonic institutions of the day the opportunity he coveted for the propagation of his views. From this, original intention, however, he was soon diverted

And again we see a close association (tho not a conection) between masonry and the greek mystery religions. I wonder what sort of knowledge the people of weishaupts time actually had about the elusian mysteries or the related/associated cult of the cabiri, etc?

Out of the, voluminous and rambling expositions which Weishaupt at various times made of the three primary grades, viz., Novice, Minerval, and Illuminated Minerval,

I don't think that I've actually seen the names of the illuminati grades before. Odd that there is such an emphasis on Minerva, tho not very odd; she's a latinized Athena in a way.

Once enrolled, the instruction of each Novice was to be in the hands of his enroller, who kept well hidden from his pupil the identity of the rest of his superiors.

Very odd way to operate.

An important part of the responsibility of the Novice consisted in the drawing-up of a detailed report (for the archives of the order), containing complete, information connerning his family and his personal career, covering such remote items as the titles of the books he possessed, the names of his personal enemies and the occasion of their enmity, his own strong and weak points of character, the dominant passions of his parents, the names of their parents and intimates, etc

That seems a little invasive no? Perhaps this sort of thing explains why the order doesn't get that many members, even tho, as noted later, members needed to recruit other members to advance.


Haven't read the whole yet, but it looks pretty interesting.

[edit on 24-10-2005 by Nygdan]