by Terry Melanson - April 27, 2012

Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith, by James H. Billington, is arguably the most valuable reference on revolutionaries ever written. (The softcover that I purchased in 2004 is in tatters from overuse and nearly impossible to handle; the situation is the same, I suspect, for many students and historians of the subject.) The body of the text is remarkable enough, however his extensive notes also feature a narrative full of minutia, and multiple citations ranging from a paragraph to a full page. I continually mine it for new leads, and constantly discover that many of the obscure older sources – once only housed in prestigious University and libraries – are now accessible on the internet.

An example that I’ve found lately is a 1910 article by Otto Karmin. Here’s the passage from Billington followed by citations (pp. 93, 537-8):

In the early days of the revolution, Masonry provided much of the key symbolism and ritual—beginning with the Masonic welcome under a “vault of swords” of the king at the Hotel de Ville three days after the fall of the Bastille.^[36] To be sure, most French Masons prior to the revolution had been “not revolutionaries, not even reformers, nor even discontent”;^[37] and, even during the revolution, Masonry as such remained politically polymorphous: “Each social element and each political tendency could ‘go masonic’ as it wished.”^[38] But Masonry provided a rich and relatively nontraditional foraging ground for new national symbols (coins, songs, banners, seals), new forms of address (tu, frère, vivat!), and new models for civic organizations, particularly outside Paris.^[39]

[…]

36. On the use of the voûte d’acier on Jul 17, see J. Palou, La Franc-maçonnerie, 1972, 187.

37. D. Mornet, Les Origines intellectuelles de la révolution française (1715–1787), 1954, 375; discussion 357–87; bibliography, 523–5; and outside of France, Billington, Icon, 712–4. A. Mellor, Les Mythes maçonniques, (1974) also minimizes Masonic influence, though vaguely acknowledging the influence of the occultist revival on the revolutionary movement.

38. Ligou, “Source,” 46, also 49.

39. This subject has never been comprehensively studied. For the best discussions in general terms, see O. Karmin, “L’Influence du symbolisme maçonnique sur le symbolisme révolutionnaire,” Revue Historique de la Révolution Française, 1910, I, 183–8 (particularly on numismatics); J. Brengues, “La Franc-maçonnerie et la fête révolutionnaire,” Humanisme, 1974, Jul–Aug, 31– 7; Palou, 181–215; R. Cotte, “De la Musique des loges maçonniques à celles des fêtes révolutionnaires,” Les Fêtes de la révolution, 1977, 565–74; and the more qualified assessment of Ligou, “Structures et symbolisme maçonniques sous la révolution,” Annales Historiques, 1969, Jul Sep, 511–23.

For the heavy reliance on Masonic structures in provincial civic rituals, see, for instance, F. Vermale, “La Franc maçonnerie savoisienne au début de la révolution et les dames de Bellegarde,” Annales Révolutionnaires, III, 1910, 375–94; and especially the monumental work for la Sarthe which lifts the level of research far above anything done for Paris: A. Bouton, Les Franc-maçons manceaux et la révolution française, 1741–1815, Le Mans, 1958. See also his successor volume Les Luttes ordentes des francs-maçons manceaux pour l’établissement de la république 1815–1914, Le Mans, 1966.

In the New World, where the links between Masonic and revolutionary organizations were particularly strong, rival revolutionary parties sometimes assumed the names of rival rites. In Mexico, for instance, escoceses (pro-English “centralists” from Scottish rite lodges) battled yorquinos (federalists from the rite of York introduced by the first U.S. ambassador, Joel Poinsett). See A. Bonner, “Mexican Pamphlets in the Bodleian Library,” The Bodleian Library Record, 1970, Apr, 207–8.

Leads a plenty.

It was the Karmin article, after finding it online, which compelled me to compile “Masonic Emblems on Coins and Medallions during the French Revolution.”

Basically, what he did was mine the data in a standard numismatic reference work and highlight the examples of Masonic influence – minus illustrations, hence the need for my own treatment. The evidence is clear and seems deliberate, although one isn’t quite sure whether the artists involved were actually Masons themselves.

(more…)

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

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.

Max Davies - April 30, 2009

The all-seeing eye, so many wigs, and an international secret society bent on world domination. All these get wrapped up in Terry Melanson’s book on the 18th Century Bavarian Illuminati, formerly known as the Perfectibilists, who sought to seize power by insinuating itself into governmental positions, other secret societies, and education.

Most of us think only of Dan Brown’s portrayal of the Illuminati when we hear the name –if that. Over so many years, the reams of paper on the Illuminati has only added to the mystery and the misunderstanding of this secret society. And as colorful as some of these accounts are, the truth is more surprising in many ways.

No longer the subject of an eccentric card game named Illuminati, this book lays bare the initiative made by former Jesuit Adam Weishaupt to create a society in which “for the first 11 years of its existence this amazingly successful secret society managed to penetrate nearly every court in the Holy Roman Empire and had initiated some of the most intelligent and influential adherents of the Enlightenment.”

Full story

Comment: Jesuit-taught! … Don’t get me started

From Patrick Webb, editor of the Daily Astorian:

[...] Before seeing the movie [Angels & Demons], I have been researching the background by dipping into “Perfectibilists,” the definitive book about the Illuminati, those shadowy 18th-century Bavarian fellas. Look closely and you will discover the year of their founding appears on every American dollar bill (yoiks!), along with the unfinished pyramid and the all-seeing eye, both symbols with Freemason connections. Proof indeed?

The book is written by Canadian resident Terry Melanson, who runs the Internet Illuminati conspiracy archive, and is published by Kris Millegan of Walterville, a tiny Oregon town in Lane County. Millegan told me he began publishing conspiracy theory books after his father, a disillusioned CIA operative in the 1950s, revealed some interesting fireside tales.

The book traces the criss-crossing paths of the Illuminati and prominent European Freemasons, but certainly doesn’t convince me that we need to shut down all the Masonic lodges.

Odd how seemingly unconnected things flash into your head. Reading Melanson’s Illuminati book, which clearly is the product of months, if not years, of research, I admired the effort if not the outcome. Then I suddenly thought of Tom Lehrer, a musical wordsmith I greatly admire, who describes himself as “well known in academic circles for his masterly translation into Latin of ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ which remains even today the standard Latin version of that work.”

… and some of the secrets contained therein can be read/viewed here.

The book can be purchased in most major retailers, and pre-orders have already been shipped.

It’s 500+ pages, profusely illustrated, and represents the first monograph on the Bavarian Illuminati (in the English language) in two hundred years. A lot of ground is covered and most of it will be new to the reader.

Thanks for everyone’s patience, and I hope it has been worth the wait.

Perfectibilists.info should be up and running soon (not sure what it will contain). Right now it re-directs to the Trine Day page for the book.