"We have got several zealous members in the courts of justice, and we are able to afford them pay, and other good additions.
"Lately, we have got possession of the Bartholomew Institution for young clergymen, having secured all its supporters. Through this we shall be able to supply Bavaria with fit priests.
"By a letter from Philo we learn, that one of the highest dignities in the church was obtained for a zealous Illuminatus, in opposition even to the authority and right of the Bishop of Spire, who is represented as a bigoted and tyrannical priest."
Such were the lesser mysteries of the Illuminati. But there remain the higher mysteries. The system of these has not been printed, and the degrees were conferred only by Spartacus himself, from papers which he never entrusted to any person. They were only read to the candidate, but no copy was taken. The publisher of the Neueste Arbeitung says that he has read them (so says Grollman). He says, "that in the first degree of Magus or Philosophus, the doctrines are the same with those of Spinoza, where all is material, God and the world are the same thing, and all religion whatever is without foundation, and, the contrivance of ambitious men." The second degree, or Rex, teaches, "that every peasant, citizen, and householder is a sovereign, as in the Patriarchal state, and that nations must be brought back to that state, by whatever means are conducible—peaceably, if it can be done; but, if not, then by force—for all subordination must vanish from the face of the earth."
The author says further, that the German Union was, to his certain knowledge, the work of the Illuminati.
The private correspondence that has been published is by no means the whole of what was discovered at Landshut and Bassus Hoss, and government got a great deal of useful information, which was concealed, both out of regard to the families of the persons concerned, and also that the rest might not know the utmost extent of the discovery, and be less on their guard. A third collection was found under the foundation of the house in which the Lodge Theodor vom guten Rath had been held. But none of this has appeared. Enough surely has been discovered to give the public a very just idea of the designs of the Society and its connections.
Lodges were discovered, and are mentioned in the private papers already published, in the following places.
I have picked up the names of the following members.