Mark Coleman Wallace PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

virtue. 25 This program for restructuring society became known as Illuminism,
which Weishaupt attempted to blend with freemasonry to ensure his Order’s
success. Ostensibly to dispel any doubts as to the aims of the Illuminati, he
joined Lodge Theodore of Good Counsel in Munich in 1777. His radical
political stance drew criticism, however, and the Order’s association with
freemasonry encouraged detractors’ efforts to increasingly tarnish the reputation
of the masons.
This was why The Order of the Illuminati was cited during the debate
over the Secret Societies Act of 1799. The suspicions the Illuminati provoked
stemmed from their beliefs as well as their secrecy, and in an age “bred on
notions of conspiracy, it is not surprising that Freemasonry and other
movements aroused acute fears.” 26 The Earl of Radnor expressed his
scepticism about the activities of the freemasons, 27 asserting that
their meetings were, in other countries at least, made subservient to the
purposes of those Illuminati who had succeeded in the overthrow of one
great government, and were labouring for the destruction of all others.
This he conceived to have been proved in a work some time since
published by a very learned Professor and he was desirous to guard
against any similar practices in this country. 28
193
25 Black writes that “In 1785 all secret societies, including the Freemasons and Illuminati, were
banned by Karl Theodor of Bavaria and in 1787 evidence that purported to demonstrate a plot by
the latter was published…In an age bred on notions of conspiracy, it is not surprising that
Freemasonry and other movements aroused acute fears…,” Eighteenth-Century Europe, 399-
400; See also Ulrich Im Hof, “German Associations and Politics in the Second Half of the
Eighteenth Century,” in Transformation, 215-216.
26 Ibid.
27 Quoted in Prescott, “Unlawful,” 8. For a wider explanation of the Illuminati, their doctrines
and impact on the European Enlightenment, see Robison, Proofs, 100-271; 360-496; Barruel,
Memoirs Vol. 3; Vernon Stauffer, New England and the Bavarian Illuminati (New York, 1919),
142-228.
28 Ibid, 8. Prescott proposes that “this was the first point at which Robison’s famous 1797 antimasonic
work was mentioned in the course of the 1799 legislation.”