The Most Evil Secret Societies in History (2 page)

BOOK: The Most Evil Secret Societies in History
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To a lesser extent the Tong and the Camorra have also, through their individual operations, brought misery to thousands of people, although they do not preach a religion of hatred or racial superiority. Nevertheless, both the Tong and the Camorra, because they have both created an aura of mystery around their operations, fascinate the general public to an extent where they have been dangerously romanticized. In this they are similar to the Mafia, whose secret operations have produced a plethora of books, films and documentaries all pandering to our deep-seated desire to know something we shouldn’t. In other words, part of our fascination with secret societies stems from an overwhelming need to find out what lies behind Bluebeard’s locked door. This may also help to explain why there are always plenty of people willing to join up to some of the more bizarre secret societies out there. While it is easy to understand why racists would want to belong to the Ku Klux Klan, or why left-wing guerrillas would eagerly sign up to the Socialist Patients Collective, it is perhaps beyond our comprehension why anyone would wish to enrol with a group as odd as the Order of the Solar Temple.

Naturally, we may assume such individuals are psychiatrically disturbed, lost souls looking for something to live by, or easily manipulated into giving away their life’s savings, but, while such assumptions may have some basis in truth, for certain people curiosity plays no small part in their decision-making processes. They want to know what it is like on the other side of the door, are the promises of a sweet hereafter true, and will their lives suddenly blossom? Of course, once they have taken that first step over the threshold, it is often (given the powerful personalities of the leaders, and brainwashing techniques they sometimes employed) impossible to extricate themselves from the group. Those that do attempt to leave may face the threat of death or, in the case of the Solar Temple, prompt a doomsday scenario leading to the deaths of many others, too. After the Solar Temple’s mass ‘suicides,’ the Swiss government set up an information center on religious cults so that the general public could be better informed about the dangers of joining such organizations.

What then can be done to dissuade people from joining up to such evil, warped and, in many cases, murderous operations? The answer is very little. Wherever man congregates, at some time or another, a secret society is bound to be formed or, put another way, just as city of London residents are never more than a few feet away from an unseen rat, so the chances are that wherever you live in the world there is some kind of secret society in operation, either plotting the downfall of a sworn enemy or planning some equally bizarre and evil act.

Shelley Klein

THE ILLUMINATI – FOUNDERS OF A NEW WORLD ORDER

As Weishaupt lived under the tyranny of a despot and priests, he knew that caution was necessary even in spreading information, and the principles of pure morality. This has given an air of mystery to his views, was the foundation of his banishment […] If Weishaupt had written here, where no secrecy is necessary in our endeavors to render men wise and virtuous, he would not have thought of any secret machinery for that purpose.

T
HOMAS
J
EFFERSON

E
ver since Dan Brown wrote his bestselling novel,
Angels and Demons
, the Illuminati has been the subject of intense speculation among both the general public and the media alike. In his novel, Brown presents an intriguing scenario, one in which a highly secretive society that has been presumed extinct for several centuries establishes itself once again in order to continue its bloody feud against the Catholic church. But how much of the Brown plotline is based on fact? Did such a group ever exist and if so is it still functioning today?

When attempting to study the nature and activities of secret societies, it quickly becomes very difficult (occasionally well-nigh impossible) to separate fact from fiction, reality from centuries-old fabrication, the truth from downright lies. The case of the Illuminati is no exception and it is, in fact, even more difficult to distil the truth from all of the available information about this group owing to the huge public interest in new world orders, global conspiracy theories and shadowy organizations who supposedly control world affairs. Over the centuries, several groups have laid claim to the name Illuminati, boasting their possession of Gnostic texts or of other even more arcane information not otherwise available to the general public. The first known record of the name Illuminati comes in the second century AD when a self-styled prophet by the name of Montanus, who had previously belonged to the cult of Cybele, converted to Christianity. He then set up a group in direct opposition to the institutionalized church. Alongside the prophetesses, Prisca (or Priscilla) and Maxilla, Montanus's most famous convert to the cause was the Catholic apologist Tertullian. But it is the fourth-century historian, Eusebius, who best illustrates Montanus's extraordinary gifts, describing how converts underwent all manner of religious experiences including ‘speaking in tongues' and receiving apocalyptic visions.

Their opposition and their recent heresy which has separated them from the Church arose on the following account […] a recent convert, Montanus by name, through his unquenchable desire for leadership, gave the adversary opportunity against him. And he became beside himself […] in a sort of frenzy and ecstasy, he raved and began to babble and utter strange things, prophesying in a manner contrary to the custom of the Church handed down by tradition from the beginning.
1

Aside from these reveries however, what lay at the heart of Montanus's teachings was a type of ‘end-of-the-world' scenario so beloved of almost all the sects studied in this book. To help his followers come to terms with his apocalyptic vision, Montanus laid down a strict moral code for them to follow, one that would purify the Christian soul and deter disciples from coveting material goods. This form of illuminism flourished for several centuries, particularly in Asia Minor, before gradually diminishing until, in the ninth century, it died out altogether.

Nothing was then heard of the Illuminati in any shape or form until, in fifteenth-and sixteenth-century Spain, a group calling themselves the Alumbrado (which roughly translates as ‘Illuminati') appeared. The Alumbrado claimed to be in direct communion with the Holy Spirit and stated that all outward forms of religious adherence, such as the observance of the liturgy, were unnecessary. One of their earliest leaders, who wholeheartedly embraced these teachings, was a laborer's daughter from Salamanca known as La Beata de Piedrahita. She declared that she held long conversations with both Jesus and the Virgin Mary, claims that quite naturally brought her to the attention of the Inquisition. Miraculously, she escaped death at the hands of her interogators, although others weren't quite as lucky. In Toledo, adherents to the Alumbrado were subjected to severe beatings and imprisonment while the Inquisition served no less than three separate edicts against the group, issued in 1568, 1574 and 1623.

It was also in 1623 that a movement known as the Illuminés was established in France (some say having traveled up from Seville in Spain). Quite rapidly this movement attained a strong following in the Picardy region although very little documentation remains as to the nature of the group, its beliefs or practices. What is generally agreed upon is that Pierce Guérin, the curé of Saint-Georges de Roye, who founded his own group called the Gurinets, joined the Illuminés in 1634.

Over a century later, in 1772, yet another group called the Illuminés came to light in the south of France, but while little is known about the Picardy sect, even less is known about this second organization. Finally, we arrive at perhaps the best known of all the Illuminati-style societies, which started in eighteenth-century Bavaria.

Adam Weishaupt was born on 6 February 1748 in Ingolstadt and as a young boy was educated by Jesuit priests who instilled in him not only discretion, but also respect for the hierarchic obedience of the Society of Jesus (or Jesuits). Yet despite his early allegiance to the order, his appointment as Professor of Natural and Canon Law at the University of Ingolstadt in 1775 angered his teachers for not only did he grow to espouse seriously liberal, cosmopolitan views, but he also ‘condemned bigotry and superstitious Priests.'
2
Not everyone was against him however, for soon Weishaupt had earned a good reputation amongst both students and professors alike and even those at neighboring universities were impressed by his teachings. Perhaps this support afforded Weishaupt confidence, and no doubt this in turn led to the suggestion that he should become the leader of a more influential group.

On 1 May 1776, with the help of Baron Adolph von Knigge, Weishaupt formed the ‘Order of Perfectibilists', which later became known as the Illuminati. Interestingly, some historians have since claimed that this founding date marks the origin of the Communist May Day observance, although there is little evidence to support the theory. What is certain is that in 1777, Weishaupt was invited to join a Freemasonry Lodge, the Theodor zum guten Rath (Lodge Theodor), in Munich. He accepted the invitation even though most of his energies were still devoted to the Illuminati, whose doctrine was a curious mixture of Islamic mysticism, Jesuit mental discipline and some of Freemasonry's own teachings, many of which also cherished the idea of ‘illumination'. Nonetheless, Weishaupt's group was a law unto itself with its own agenda and initiatives. Its declared mission was an adherence to a strict code of morality in order to create a society of men strong enough to oppose the forces of evil.

Adam Weishaupt was Professor of Natural and Canon Law at the University of Ingolstadt in 1775, but was sacked from his post nine years later after forming a group called the Order of Perfectibilists, later known as the Illuminati.

Yet, despite being completely separate from the Freemasons, an apocryphal story has grown up around the conception of the Illuminati, a story that relates how a courier by the name of Lanz, who had recently joined the Illuminati, was struck down by a bolt of lightning whilst carrying a bundle of Weishaupt's most important papers. Lanz died, but when his body was discovered by the authorities, so too were Weishaupt's documents which were said to reveal a direct link between his group and that of Freemasonry. Perhaps this is why, in Dan Brown's novel, a basic premise of the story is that in the sixteenth century the Illuminati (who Robert Langdon believes had already established themselves in Italy), having been banished from Rome, were taken in by the Bavarian Freemasons after which they set about using the latter as a front for their activities, effectively forming a secret society within a secret society. They then set their sights on the United States, once again using the Freemasons as a front in order to attain a foothold on American soil. ‘The Illuminati,' says Langdon, ‘took advantage of the infiltration and helped found banks, universities, and industry to finance their ultimate quest [ …] The creation of a single unified world state – a kind of secular New World Order.'
3

This is a wonderful idea, and one that illustrates how clever Brown is when it comes to weaving good yarns, but there is little evidence to support his plotline and as for the story of Lanz, there is also little doubt in most historians' minds that the anecdote was an invention by anti-Masonic writers and Jesuit groups opposed to Weishaupt and his new order. There was, after all, little in Weishaupt's teachings that mainstream religion could warm to. Take for example this early nineteenth-century analysis of Weishaupt's methods and underlying agenda:

His scheme appears to be calculated, not so much for uniting persons of similar sentiments in one society, as for seducing those of opposite inclinations, and by a most artful and detestable process, gradually obliterating from their minds every moral and religious sentiment. It is in this view principally that this plan of seduction calls for the attention of mankind, as it develops the secret, insidious policy by which the agents of faction and infidelity lead on their disciples, still concealing their real designs, until the mind is involved in a maze of error, or entangled in snares from which there is no retreat.'
4

By 1780, the Illuminati had grown in strength, with its co-founder, Knigge, recording how the group had enrolled approximately two thousand members throughout Europe. Weishaupt was delighted. His mission of ‘illuminating' his disciples' minds through reasoned argument was working and seemed to complement the oncoming Enlightenment when radical free thinkers such as Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau were at work espousing, amongst other theories, the concept that religion should be ‘reasonable' and consequently result in the highest moral behavior of its adherents.

But this was Bavaria in the mid-eighteenth century – a highly conservative, inward-looking state dominated by the Roman Catholic church who did not take kindly to Weishaupt's type of radical rationalism, nor his arguments that nations and religions should be swept away alongside such institutionalized ideas as property and marriage. As a result, the Illuminati was labeled seditious and in 1784 the Bavarian government banned the Society. Weishaupt subsequently lost his position at Ingolstadt University and fled Bavaria to sanctuary in Gotha.

BOOK: The Most Evil Secret Societies in History
3.41Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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