See whether through him you can discover the real history, origin, and the first founders of Masonry, for on this alone I am still undecided.[523]
But it is in "Philo," the Baron von Knigge, a Freemason and member of the Stride Observance, in which he was known as the Eques a Cygno, that Weishaupt finds his most efficient investigator. Thus "Philo" writes to "Spartacus":
I have now found in Cassel the best man, on whom I cannot congratulate ourselves enough: he is Mauvillon, Grand Master of one of the Royal York Lodges. So with him we have the whole lodge in our hands. He has also got from there all their miserable degrees [Er hat auch von dort aus alle ihre elenden Grade].[524]
No wonder that Weishaupt thereupon exclaims joyfully: "Philo does more than we all expected, and he is the man who alone will carry it all through."[525] Weishaupt then occupies himself in trying to get a "Constitution" from London, evidently without success, and also in wresting the Lodge Theodore in Munich from the control of Berlin in order to substitute his own domination, so that "the whole secret chapter will be subjected to our ⊙, leave everything to it, and await further degrees from it alone."[526]
In all this Weishaupt shows himself not only an intriguer but a charlatan, inventing mysteries and degrees to impose on the credulity of his followers. "The mysteries, or so-called secret truths, are the finest of all," he writes to "Philipo Strozzi," "and give me much trouble."[527] So whilst heartily despising Freemasonry, theosophy, Rosicrucianism, and mysticism of every kind, his association with Philo leads him to perceive the utility of all these as a bait, and he allows Philo to draw up plans for a degree of Scottish Knight. But the result is pitiable, Philo's composition, a "semi-theosophical discourse and explanation of hieroglyphics" is characterized by Weishaupt as gibberish (kauderwelsche).[528]
Philo [he says again] is full of such follies, which betray his small mind.... On the Illuminatus Major follows the miserable degree of Scottish Knight entirely of his composition, and on the degree of Priest an equally miserable degree of Regent, ... but I have already composed four more degrees compared to the worst of which the Priest's degree will be child's play, but I shall tell no one about it till I see how the thing goes....[529]
The perfidy of the Illuminati with regard to the Freemasons is therefore apparent. Even Mounier, who set out to refute Barruel on the strength of the information supplied to him by the Illuminatus Bode, admits their duplicity in this respect.
Weishaupt [says Mounier] made the acquaintance of a Hanoverian, the Baron von Knigge, a famous intriguer, long practised in the charlatanism of lodges of Freemasons. On his advice new degrees were added to the old ones, and it was resolved to profit by Freemasonry whilst profoundly despising it. They decided that the degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, Master Mason, and Scotch Knight should be added to those of the Illuminati, and that they would boast of possessing exclusively the real secrets of the Freemasons and affirm that Illuminism was the real primitive Freemasonry.
"The papers of the Order seized in Bavaria and published," Mounier says again, show that "the Illuminati employed the forms of Freemasonry, but that they considered it in itself, apart from their own degrees, as a puerile absurdity and that they detested the Rose-Croix." Mounier, as a good disciple of Bode, takes much the same view and pities the naïveté of the Freemasons, who, "like so many children, spend a great part of the time in their lodges playing at chapel."
Why in the face of all this should any British Masons take up the cudgels for the Illuminati and vilify Robison and Barruel for exposing them? The American Mackey, as a consistent Freemason, shows scant sympathy for this traitor in the masonic camp. "Weishaupt," he writes, "was a radical in politics and an infidel in religion, and he organized this association, not more for the purpose of aggrandizing himself, than of overturning Christianity and the institutions of society." And in a footnote he adds that Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy "contain a very excellent exposition of the nature of this pseudo-masonic institution."[530]