A review of Baron von Knigge’s Illuminati apology.

Knigge on the Illuminati (According to Knigge) and Other Reflections (According to the Historical Record)

Short bio on Knigge from my book below, sans endnotes.

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Knigge, Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwig, Baron von (1752 Bredenbeck, Germany – 1796 Bremen, Germany)

Philo

Second in command under Weishaupt (from 1780-84), Knigge studied law at Göttingen in 1769, and subsequently served the courts of Hesse-Kassel and Weimar. He was a chamberlain in Hanau (1776) and Frankfurt am Main (1780), then in Hanover and Heidelberg in 1783; and in 1791, Knigge was appointed civil administrator in Bremen.

Baron von Knigge was “a man of considerable distinction in his day.” He penned works of “romance, popular philosophy, and dramatic poetry” and wrote reviews for Nicolai’s Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek [General German Library]. His novels were “attractive bait to catch the readers’ interest, a well-designed vehicle for transmitting revolutionary messages.” Most of Knigge’s works were either banned or censored, especially after publicly supporting the French Revolution. His 1788 book, Über den Umgang mit Menschen [On Human Relations], a guide on politeness, manners and etiquette, for instance, “landed on the inquisitors’ desk in 1820, with critics saying its philosophy encouraged selfishness and concentrated on personal happiness in a way that contradicted Catholic spirituality.”

Knigge was fascinated with secret societies. At the earliest age possible (twenty-one), he joined the Cassel Masonic Lodge ‘Zum gekrönten Löwen’ (1773), and became a member of the Strict Observance (alias, ‘a Cygno’) in 1779. Knigge was intrigued with the subjects of theosophy, magic, alchemy, and Rosicrucianism. He inherited this occult fascination from his father, Philipp Carl von Knigge, “whom he had observed spending his time in the study of Masonic Mysteries, and his money in the vain pursuit of the Philosopher’s Stone. The father’s gold had vanished in the crucible, and the son reaped nothing but the dross.”

Strict Observance freemasonry was conceived in Germany by Baron von Hund. The “Knights of Strict Observance” swore allegiance to “unknown superiors” and claimed direct descent from the Knights Templar and the Rosicrucians. The Strict Observance lodges created an occult pedigree to attract recruits with the promise of joining an Order of a continuous, ancient descent. Secrets that began in antiquity were more appealing than something only recently devised. Weishaupt understood this from the beginning, and created his own mythical genealogy for the Illuminati. When Knigge joined the Order he immediately asked Weishaupt for proof the Order’s antiquity. Weishaupt admitted it was only a ruse, but rather than being offended, Knigge—knowing that an ancient pedigree was an important part of a secret society’s appeal—immediately “proceeded to build one of his own, where the Illuminati were declared as having originally been founded by Noah, and revived after a period of decline by St John the Evangelist.”

In July, 1780 Knigge was insinuated into the Illuminati by Costanzo (Diomedes); his alias alludes to Philo Judaeus (15-10 BC–45-50 AD), the Hellenized Jewish philosopher from Alexandria.

By Charles Burris

Excerpt:

I have attempted to relate to my students that once upon a time a secret society named the Order of the Illuminati was indeed founded on May 1, 1776, by a former professor of canon law at the University of Ingolstadt, Bavaria named Adam Weishaupt. This clandestine organization existed for a number of years and had an elite membership of significant and influential persons throughout Europe who acted covertly in furtherance of the goals and objectives of this group. Using primary source documents, careful and diligent scholars have documented who those specific members were and what the goals entailed. But the organization went out of formal existence. No successful scholar has been able to authentically document the continuation of the organization by overt or covert means to the present day.

- Unions and Communists March Side By Side at May Day Rally - Los Angeles, Ca 5/1/2011
- SEIU drops mask, goes full commie

Related:
- May Day and the Posthumous Influence of the Illuminati (Appendix: May Day 2006 Red Flag Photo Compilation)

Over at TopSecretWriters

Biographical essay on some notable members of the Bavarian Illuminati, utilizing relevant and up-to-date, specialized scholarly research: 10 Notable Members of the Illuminati

1. Charles-Pierre-Paul, Marquis de Savalette de Langes (1745-1797)
2. * Gabriel Honoré Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau (1749-1791)
3. Alexandre-Louis Roëttiers de Montaleau (1748-1808)
4. Count Franz Joseph von Kolowrat-Liebensteinsky (b. 1748)
5. Johann Caspar [Jean Gaspard] Schweizer (1754-1811)
6. Friedrich Christian Carl Heinrich Münter (1761-1830)
7. Francesco Mario Pagano (1748-1799)
8. Ignaz Edler von Born (1742-1791)
9. Friedrich Ludwig Ulrich Schröder (1744-1816)
10. Mathias Metternich (1747-1825)

Not necessarily the most important members: noteworthy, chiefly through their efforts to extend the life of the Order, and/or having themselves been involved in revolutionary activities. Johann Caspar Schweizer, in particular (which I had unfortunately overlooked in my book), is an important example of the latter.

Were you aware that a high-ranking Illuminati member had sent letters to both John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, asking permission to settle in America, that John Adams replied, and that the letters still exist? I hadn’t. In fact, it’s a brand new discovery.

Learn about it here.

Sections: IX. Instruction for Cato, Marius and Scipio; X. Instructio pro Recipientibus [Instruction for those Conducting Receptions]; XI. Instruction for those who obtain the right to insinuate a candidate; XII. Oath

Some Original Writings of the Order of the Illuminati (pp. 43-60)

Stephen Hand alerted me to the fact that the photo galleries section of Newsweek.com features what amounts to a full-page ad of my book Perfectibilists.

(Go here, and click page 4)

Since it is an MSM outfit, the ostensible tone is one of overall derision toward “conspiracists.” However, in the accompanying descriptions, journalist David A. Graham demonstrates an uncharacteristic familiarity with the topic (including the Pilgrims Society), backed with copious links, and not a single one points to Wikipedia. There’s some obscure links included as well; that I haven’t come across in years but were quite popular in the day.

Hmm … Owls, Weaving Spiders, the Illuminati PMCV [Per Me Caeci Vident] … Looks like someone has been reading Perfectibilists, or the Owl of Wisdom article.

Introduction

(Thanks to Joe Wäges for translating some of the biographical material on Wolf.)

Translated from German to English and printed in the short-lived periodical German museum (v.1: London, 1800, pp. 207-218, 296-305, 390-396), the following essay on the Bavarian Illuminati is a contemporary, apologetic account. It was written by Peter Philipp Wolf (1761-1808) and included in volume four of his history of the Jesuits: Allgemeine Geschichte der Jesuiten (1789-92).

Born in Pfaffenhofen, Bavaria, Wolf received his primary education in the Jesuit schools of Munich. His free spirit couldn’t endure theocentric pedantry for long, however, and he soon ran away. Penniless, after a brief stay in Strasbourg he had no choice but to return home. His parents wanted him to become a priest so they sent him to a boarding school in Weihenstephan; but after a short while, Wolf again escaped the clutches of the ecclesiastics. Later, in letter to his friend Lorenz von Westenrieder (1748-1829) (who was briefly a member of the Illuminati in 1779), he wrote: “I can confirm it by my own example how little education is good in the seminaries….rude manners, ascetic pride, monkish hypocrisy, [and] youthful conceit are the rocks on which can fail even the most promising young men.”

Wolf then apprenticed with the Munich bookseller and printer Johann Baptist Strobl [or Strobel] (1748-1805), but they didn’t get along. (Strobl was also briefly an Illuminatus prospectus; afterwards an opponent of the Order, and the government-sanctioned publisher of the famous Einige Originalschriften des Illuminatenordens.) The relationship deteriorated to the point that Strobl accused Wolf of printing a libellous pamphlet against him. He pled his case before the authorities, and Wolf had to spend a year in jail.

Full story

The rare 1802 pamphlet by John Wood is online for the first time, thanks to the efforts of Joe Wäges. The reader would benefit considerably by consulting pp. 91 to 97 (and notes) of Perfectibilists. What John Wood discusses in his volume is directly linked to what had initially occurred in France with the Theophilanthropists and the Cult of the Adorers (Culte des Adorateurs) of Thomas Paine and Illuminatus Francois-Antoine Lemoyne Daubermesnil (1748-1802).

Charles Burris at the Lew Rockwell blog:

“The revolutionary movement which began in 1789 in the Cercle Social, which in the middle of its course had as its chief representatives Leclerc and Roux, and which finally with Babeuf’s conspiracy was temporarily defeated, gave rise to the communist idea which Babeuf’s friend Buonarroti re-introduced in France after the Revolution in 1830. This idea, consistently developed, is the idea of the new world order.”

This quote (found here in full context) is from The Holy Family, the first joint collaboration volume of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It was written several years before their more celebrated (and originally anonymous) 1848 work, The Communist Manifesto.

So from Marx and Engels — the founding fathers of modern communism — we have it boldly stated: the communist idea = the new world order.

OK — David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, George H. W. Bush, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, John McCain, Barack Obama, ad nauseam — how do you explain away this one? Conspiracy fact or conspiracy theory?

I found this extremely revealing quote in Perfectibilists: The 18th Century Bavarian Order of the Illuminati by Terry Melanson. I just received this wonderful book a couple of days ago from Amazon.com. In that time I have only begun to scratch the surface of its encyclopedic amassing of factual information concerning its controversial subject, yet it is fast becoming one of my favorite books. I have not been this impressed with a new book for a very long time. The carefully detailed scholarship is evident throughout this handsome, beautifully executed volume.

Melanson’s work deserves to be placed on the same reference shelf as James Billington’s Fire in the Minds of Men, and Carroll Quigley’s Tragedy and Hope, for its scholastic integrity and dedication to truth-telling without tabloid sensation or hyperbole.

While this will be the definitive English-language history of the Bavarian Illuminati, there is so much more to its remarkable contents. Melanson’s intriguing discussion of how Freemasonry, the Rosicrucians, and the Jesuits relate to the Illuminati within the milieu of the Aufklarung (the German Enlightenment) is particularly fascinating and dispels much prior pseudo-scholarship and hot house theorizing by supposed authorities on these topics.

From Marco Di Luchetti’s “Illuminati of Bavaria” site:

Terry Melanson, Perfectibilists (2009).

This is a superb, insightful and intelligent history of the Order of the Illuminati of Bavaria. It is the foundation stone upon which any modern proper understanding of the Illuminati should be based. Mr. Melanson treats his subject objectively and with precise care, never exaggerating but instead providing all the essential details. The thoroughness of his research is self-evident. Because I have read many of the books upon which he relies, I can confirm his accuracy. I read carefully to find even a single error, and found none. Mr. Melanson’s book will therefore for a long time to come fill in the dark gaps in history regarding the Illuminati, and hopefully bring to a close the current chapter where hype and conjecture are taken as a factual account.

• Einige Originalschriften des Illuminatenordens at Scribd
• Some Original Writings of the Order of the Illuminati (pp. 26-43)

“Master Conspiracy” Redux

The So-Called Schwedenkiste (“Swedish Box”), the Most Significant Illuminati Archive