There is not a single one who, in the event that his superiors should order him to do things contrary to the duties of a Christian or of a good man, would not see an exception to be made to the obedience which he has sworn. This exception is often expressed and always clearly announced in all religious institutions; it is above all formal and positively repeated many times in that of the Jesuits. They are ordered to obey their superiors, but it is in the event that they see no sin in obeying, ubi non cerneretur peccatum (Constitution des Jesuites, part 3, chapter I, parag. 2, vol. i., édition de Prague).[498]
Indeed, implicit obedience and the total surrender of one's own will and judgement forms the foundation of all military discipline; "theirs not to reason why, theirs not to make reply" is everywhere recognized as the duty of soldiers. The Jesuits being in a sense a military Order, acknowledging a General at their head, are bound by the same obligation. Weishaupt's system was something totally different. For whilst all soldiers and all Jesuits, when obeying their superiors, are well aware of the goal towards which they are tending, Weishaupt's followers were enlisted by the most subtle methods of deception and led on towards a goal entirely unknown to them. It is this that, as we shall see later, constitutes the whole difference between honest and dishonest secret societies. The fact is that the accusation of Jesuit intrigue behind secret societies has emanated principally from the secret societies themselves and would appear to have been a device adopted by them to cover their own tracks. No good evidence has ever been brought forward in support of their contention. The Jesuits, unlike the Templars and the Illuminati, were simply suppressed in 1773 without the formality of a trial, and were therefore never given the opportunity to answer the charges brought against them, nor, as in the case of these other Orders, were their secret statutes--if any such existed--brought to light. The only document ever produced in proof of these accusations was the "Monita Secreta," long since shown to be a forgery. At any rate, the correspondence of the Illuminati provides their best exoneration. The Marquis de Luchet, who was no friend of the Jesuits, shows the absurdity of confounding their aims with those of either the Freemasons or the Illuminati, and describes all three as animated by wholly different purposes.[499]
In all these questions it is necessary to seek a motive. I have no personal interest in defending the Jesuits, but I ask: what motive could the Jesuits have in forming or supporting a conspiracy directed against all thrones and altars? It has been answered me that the Jesuits at this period cared nothing for thrones and altars, but only for temporal power; yet--even accepting this unwarrantable hypothesis--how was this power to be exercised except through thrones and altars? Was it not through princes and the Church that the Jesuits had been able to bring their influence to bear on affairs of state? In an irreligious Republic, as events afterwards proved, the power of the whole clergy was bound to be destroyed. The truth is then, that, far from abetting the Illuminati, the Jesuits were their most formidable opponents, the only body of men sufficiently learned, astute, and well organized to outwit the schemes of Weishaupt. In suppressing the Jesuits it is possible that the Old Régime removed the only barrier capable of resisting the tide of revolution.
Weishaupt indeed, as we know, detested the Jesuits,[500] and took from them only certain methods of discipline, of ensuring obedience or of acquiring influence over the minds of his disciples; his aims were entirely different.
Where, then, did Weishaupt find his immediate inspiration? It is here that Barruel and Lecouteulx de Canteleu provide a clue not to be discovered in other sources. In 1771, they relate, a certain Jutland merchant named Kölmer, who had spent many years in Egypt, returned to Europe in search of converts to a secret doctrine founded on Manichæism that he had learnt in the East. On his way to France he stopped at Malta, where he met Cagliostro and nearly brought about an insurrection amongst the people. Kölmer was therefore driven out of the island by the Knights of Malta and betook himself to Avignon and Lyons. Here he made a few disciples amongst the Illuminés and in the same year went on to Germany, where he encountered Weishaupt and initiated him into all the mysteries of his secret doctrine. According to Barruel, Weishaupt then spent five years thinking out his system, which he founded under the name of Illuminati on May 1, 1776, and assumed the "illuminated" name of "Spartacus."
Kölmer remains the most mysterious of all the mystery men of his day; at first sight one is inclined to wonder whether he may not have been another of the Cabalistic Jews acting as the secret inspirers of the magicians who appeared in the limelight. The name Kölmer might easily have been a corruption of the well-known Jewish name Calmer. Lecouteulx de Canteleu, however, suggests that Kölmer was identical with Altolas, described by Figuier as "this universal genius, almost divine, of whom Cagliostro has spoken to us with so much respect and admiration. This Altotas was not an imaginary personage. The Inquisition of Rome has collected many proofs of his existence without having been able to discover when it began or ended, for Altotas disappears, or rather vanishes like a meteor, which, according to the poetic fancy of romancers, would authorize us in declaring him immortal."[501] It is curious to notice that modern occultists, whilst attributing so much importance to Saint-Germain and the legend of his immortality, make no mention of Altotas, who appears to have been a great deal more remarkable. But, again, we must remember: "It is the unvarying rule of secret societies that the real authors never show themselves." If, then, Kölmer was the same person as Altotas, he would appear not to have been a Jew or a Cabalist, but an initiate of some Near Eastern secret society--possibly an Ismaili. Lecouteulx de Canteleu describes Altotas as an Armenian, and says that his system was derived from those of Egypt, Syria, and Persia. This would accord with Barruel's statement that Kölmer came from Egypt, and that his ideas were founded on Manichæism.
It would be necessary to set these statements aside as only the theories of Barruel or Lecouteulx, were it not that the writings of the Illuminati betray the influence of some sect akin to Manichæism. Thus "Spartacus" writes to "Cato" that he is thinking of "warming up the old system of the Ghebers and Parsees,"[502] and it will be remembered that the Ghebers were one of the sects in which Dozy relates that Abdullah ibn Maymūn found his true supporters. Later Weishaupt goes on to explain that--
The allegory in which the Mysteries and Higher Grades must be clothed is Fire Worship and the whole philosophy of Zoroaster or of the old Parsees who nowadays only remain in India; therefore in the further degrees the Order is called "Fire Worship" (Feuer-dienst), the "Fire Order," or the "Persian Order"--that is, something magnificent beyond all expectation.[503]
At the same time the Persian calendar was adopted by the Illuminati.[504]
It is evident that this pretence of Zoroastrianism was as pure humbug as Weishaupt's later pretence of Christianity; of the true doctrines of Zoroaster he shows no conception--nor does he insist further on the point; but the above passage would certainly lend colour to the theory that his system was partly founded on Manichæism, that is to say, on perverted Zoroastrianism, imparted to him by a man from the East, and that the methods of the Batinis and Fatimites may have been communicated to him through the same channel. Hence the extraordinary resemblance between his plan of organization and that of Abdullah ibn Maymūn, which consisted in political intriguing rather than in esoteric speculation. Thus in Weishaupt's system the phraseology of Judaism, the Cabalistic legends of Freemasonry, the mystical imaginings of the Martinistes, play at first no part at all. For all forms of "theosophy," occultism, spiritualism, and magic Weishaupt expresses nothing but contempt, and the Rose-Croix masons are bracketed with the Jesuits by the Illuminati as enemies it is necessary to outwit at every turn.[505] Consequently no degree of Rose-Croix finds a place in Weishaupt's system, as in all the other masonic orders of the day which drew their influence from Eastern or Cabalistic sources.