The “proofs” to which Robison appealed to support these conclusions betrayed the same lack of critical mind[486] with which all the advocates of the Illuminati-French Revolution hypothesis are to be charged. Only the more significant elements are here brought under survey.[487]
That inclination for a multiplication of the degrees and an elaboration of the ceremonies of simple English Freemasonry which Robison found operative among French Freemasons from the beginning of the eighteenth century on,[488] had resulted in making the lodges attractive to those elements in France whose discontent over civil and ecclesiastical oppressions had grown great.[489] Under the pressure imposed upon private and public discussion by the state and by the church, men of letters, avocats au parlement, unbeneficed abbés, impecunious youths, and self-styled philosophers thronged the halls of the lodges, eager to take advantage of the opportunity their secret assemblies afforded to discuss the most intimate concerns of politics and religion.[490] Despite the wide contrariety of minor views thus represented, one general idea and language, that of “cosmopolitanism,” was made familiar to a multitude of minds. Worse still, the popular interest of the period in mysticism, theosophy, cabala, and genuine science was appealed to, in order to provide a more numerous clientele among whom might be disseminated the doctrines of atheism, materialism, and discontent with civil subordination.[491] Thus the Masonic lodges in France were made the “hot-beds, where the seeds were sown, and tenderly reared, of all the pernicious doctrines which soon after choaked every moral or religious cultivation, and have made … Society worse than a waste ….”[492]
The introduction of French Freemasonry into Germany, according to Robison, was followed by similar results.[493] Thither, as to France, simple English Freemasonry had first gone, and because of its exclusive emphasis upon the principle of brotherly love the Germans had welcomed it and treated it with deep seriousness;[494] but the sense of mystery and the taste for ritualistic embellishments which the advent of French Masonry promoted, speedily changed the temper of the German brethren.[495] A reckless tendency to innovation set in. The love of stars and ribbons,[496] and the desire to learn of ghost-raising, exorcism, and alchemy,[497] became the order of the day. Rosicrucianism flourished,[498] rival systems appeared, and questions of precedency split German Freemasonry into numerous fiercely hostile camps.[499]
Meantime, on account of the propaganda carried on by the Enlighteners,[500] a revolution of the public mind took place in Germany, marked by a great increase of scepticism, infidelity, and irreligion, not only among the wealthy and luxurious but among the profligate elements in the lower classes as well.[501] Rationalistic theologians, aided and abetted by booksellers and publishers and by educational theorists,[502] coöperated to make the ideas of orthodox Christianity distasteful to the general public.[503] To give effect to this campaign of seduction, the lodges of Freemasonry were invaded and their secret assemblies employed to spread free-thinking and cosmopolitical ideas.[504] Thus German Freemasonry became impregnated with the impious and revolutionary tendencies of French Freemasonry.[505]
At such an hour, according to Robison, Weishaupt founded his Order of the Illuminati.[506] Employing the opportunities afforded him by his connections with the Masons,[507] he exerted himself to make disciples and to lay the foundations of an “Association … which, in time, should govern the world,”[508] the express aim of which “was to abolish Christianity and overturn all civil government.”[509]
To accomplish this end a most insinuating pedagogy was adopted,[510] the members were trained to spy upon one another,[511] and hypocrisy which did not stop short of positive villainy was practised.[512] As a fitting climax to a program that involved the complete subversion of existing moral standards, women were to be admitted to the lodges.[513]
Following an analysis of the grades of the order,[514] lifted little if any above the general plane of ineptitude upon which the author moved, Robison incorporated into his history of the Bavarian Illuminati a table of the lodges that had been established prior to 1786.[515] Drawing professedly upon the private papers of the order as published by the Bavarian government, he worked out a list which included five lodges in Strassburg; four in Bonn; fourteen in Austria; “many” in each of the following states, Livonia, Courland, Alsace, Hesse, Poland, Switzerland, and Holland; eight in England; two in Scotland; and “several” in America.[516]
The suppression of the Illuminati by the Bavarian government was regarded by Robison as merely “formal” in its nature:[517] the evil genius of the banned order speedily reappeared in the guise of the German Union.[518] Into the discussion of the German Union Robison read the “proofs” of an enterprise truly gigantic both as to its proportions and its baneful influence. The illuminated lodges of Freemasonry were declared to have given way to reading societies wherein the initiated, i. e., the members of the Union, actively employed themselves, apparently to accomplish the noble ends of enlightening mankind and securing the dethronement of superstition and fanaticism,[519] but actually to secure the destruction of every sentiment of religion, morality and loyalty.[520] The higher mysteries of Bahrdt’s silly and abortive project were declared to be identical with those of Weishaupt’s order: natural religion and atheism were to be substituted for Christianity, and political principles equally anarchical with those of the Illuminati were fostered.[521]