by Terry Melanson (7/1/2010)
Not widely known is the fact that some of the key ideas behind the
creation of the Bavarian Illuminati came from a member of a German
Studentenorden.
In 1776 Adam Weishaupt confided to one of his students, eighteen
year-old Franz Anton von Massenhausen, that he was thinking of creating a
secret society (at the University of Ingolstadt) to combat the
influence of both the Jesuits and the Rosicrucians. Massenhausen had
told Weishaupt that this was good idea, and that he already had some
experience in this area. Before matriculating at Ingolstadt,
Massenhausen informed his teacher, he had been a member of a student
secret society in Göttingen; he went on to describe the manner in which
they operated, its statutes, and the attire they wore. Taking this as a
model, then, on May 1st 1776 Weishaupt, Massenhausen and three others,
formed the Order of the Perfectibilists.
1
It is ironic that such should be the case, for afterwards the
Illuminati, in turn, had not only infiltrated various educational
establishments but student societies as well. As Klaus Epstein explains
it:
The famous Karlsschule in Stuttgart (Schiller’s alma mater) had several Illuminati on its staff. The educational movement headed by Basedow taught Illuminati principles, though Basedow himself apparently never joined the order. The University of Göttingen had several Illuminati
among its professors, which led Weishaupt to exclaim with surprise that
Ingolstadt was giving the law to its far more distinguished North
German rival. Tutorial positions offered excellent leverage for working
for the future triumph of the Aufklärung: the prominent
Illuminat Leuchsenring served, for example, as tutor to the Prussian
crown prince who became Frederick William III (though the later conduct
of his pupil must have disappointed him).2 The two leading student societies (Studentenorden), the Konstantisten and the Schwarze Brüder, were both infiltrated by Illuminati.
The actual influence of the order upon the education of Germany’s youth
obviously cannot be quantitatively defined, and statistical
calculations of the infiltration of the professorate are equally
impossible to make.3
These examples suffice to explain, however, the fact that
Conservatives called for a drastic purge of educational institutions.4
There’s a description of the German student orders,
in an 1859 book by Karl von Raumer, which specifically mentions both the Konstantisten and the Black brothers (or the Black Order):
[The Students' Orders] arose about the middle of the
eighteenth century. The first prohibition of them appeared at Göttingen,
in 1748, and was repeated in 1760 and 1762. In the latter year appears
the first trace of the same at Erlangen, in 1765 at Tubingen; in the
same year, 1765, appeared the first prohibition of them at Jena, and
another in 1767. A third came out in 1795, in connection with an
imperial edict against secret societies; and a similar one was then
issued in the Prussian universities and at Altdorf. In 1802, Meiners
announces, with satisfaction, of Gottingen, that “it is now some years
since the strictest inquiry could detect any of the orders at our
university;” although he naively adds, in a note, that “within a very
short period traces of an order have been discovered.” An accident, as I
myself remember, led to this discovery. A student was drowned, and in
sealing up his effects, a list was found of names of members (Konstantisten). Thus the orders lasted until the first years of the nineteenth century. At the time of the rise of the Burschenschaft (1816), they seem to have disappeared. I find no record of any contest of the Burschenschaft with the orders, but only against the Landsmannschaften.
What distinction existed between these Orders and the Landsmannschaften or Nations?
There must have been one, because they were always at enmity. Meiners
says that they had much in common in their organization, and that the
orders differed from the Landsmannschaften “only in that they
admitted members without regard to their nationality.” This was, it is
true, one distinction, but not the only one; a second was, the adoption
by the orders of symbols analogous to those of the Free Masons. Thus,
there were found, in 1765, “traces of a lodge of Free Masons among the
students at Tübingen.” Klüpfel says, “most of the orders in the
universities were off-shoots of Free Masonry.” In like manner,
Englehardt says that the Order of the Cross, founded in 1762, was
organized throughout in the forms of Free Masonry. “In the place of
assembly of the order, there was a basin with water, whose symbolic
meaning was explained to those initiated; a statue of friendship, and
one of virtue, skulls, a cross of the order, with sun, moon, and stars,
and a crucifix.” The university senate reported, in 1767, that it had
taken away some insignia of an order from some students, and that the
orders, in spite of prohibitions, were universal, both in Erlangen and
the other German universities, and that scarcely a student could be
found who did not belong to an order.
In 1770 the Order of Coopers was discovered, which held lodges, had
degrees, and had a destructive influence. The Black Order, or Order of
Harmony, arose in 1771, at Erlangen, and had members in Nuremberg and
Coburg. Its grand lodge was in Brunswick. In 1797 were found in the
papers of this order catechisms of the first, second, and third grades,
with symbols having an ethical signification. “The ceremonies of
admission were adopted from the Free Masons, with whom the Black Order
seems to have maintained very friendly relations. The statutes of this
order named Pythagoras as their first known master.” So much will serve
to describe this order as such; and it also appears that they were not
confined to the universities, nor to students. The same was the case
with the Constantists, who existed at Halle in 1786, and had afterward
(about 1798), members in civil and military stations at Berlin. Their
laws seem to have included the reckless Jacobinical religious and
political opinions; and the Prussian ministry believed “that the
revolutionists sought to make use of the students in their designs.”
What I find interesting about the above account is not only had the
student orders cribbed from the Masons for their initiation ceremonies,
but in Tübingen there was even a Masonic lodge discovered at the
University. The Black brothers, it was mentioned, were also said to have
“maintained very friendly relations” with the Masons. This happens to
coincide with what Illuminati historian René Le Forestier had written as
well.
The four major student orders during the time of the Illuminati were
the Amicisten (or Amizisten), Constantisten, Unitisten and the
Harmonisten. According to Le Forestier, the Amicists were formed in
1771, at Jena, by a few members of an even earlier society called the
Mosellaner (or Moselbund), and had formed lodges or cenacles in Giessen,
Marburg, Göttingen, Erlangen, Erfurt, Tübingen, Leipzig, Wurzburg,
Frankfurt an der Oder and Vienna. In 1779, the authorities in Jena had
relegated a number of Amicists and dissolved their lodges. They reformed
in 1784, but the dissolution of the Mosellaner in 1792 signalled the
beginning of the end (though some Amicists were still operating in 1811
at Leipzig, Jena and Halle). The Constantists, founded at Halle in 1777,
established themselves at Jena in 1783 and spread to Giessen, Erlangen,
Leipzig, Heidelberg, Frankfurt an der Oder and Vienna. Their appearance
at Jena, Wittenberg and Göttingen had caused strife with other
already-established student orders; quarrels and duels quickly ensued.
The Constantists, writes Le Forestier, had disappeared by 1803. In the
same year the Unitists had gone extinct as well. They were formed in
1771 at Halle, had rites composed of three degrees, and founded lodges
at Jena, Göttingen, Leipzig, Erlangen and Frankfurt an der Oder. The
Order of the Black Brothers was created by former members of the
Amicists in 1781. They had adopted the Scottish rite degrees in 1785,
and thenceforth took the name of the Order of Harmony – thus it would
seem that they maintained more than just “friendly relations” with the
Freemasonry. One of their lodges, “Christian among the Seven Golden
Stars” [Christian zu den sieben Goldenen Sternen], was suppressed in
1796, and they were the subject of an inquest in 1797. The Lodges of the
Black Brothers/Harmonists still existed in 1799 at Heidelberg, Giessen,
Marburg, and Göttingen; and in 1804 they had voluntarily dissolved.
5
Perhaps Le Forestier was mistaken about the date, place and founding
of the Constantists, for it seems there was a Constantisten Order at the
University of Göttingen in 1770, where, according to Arnold Brügmann,
none other than Illuminatus Baron von Knigge (1752-1796) was a member.
6
Knigge had indeed been studying at the University of Göttingen from
1769-1771, and an account in Steven Luckert’s invaluable thesis lends
further support to the notion.
During his years of study at Göttingen, Knigge had been a
member of the so-called Constantists (one of the popular student secret
societies). Right from the start, he exhibited great skills as well as
his ambition to rule. Within a short time, he made himself known in the
order, and even proposed a new plan, that was eventually accepted, which
extended beyond one’s years of study – for one’s lifetime. This change
in statutes, however, brought with it new responsibilities. Knigge
expected that each member, following graduation, would continue to
submit monthly reports detailing his circumstances as well as
information taken from government cabinets. While his plan failed
because many students, having attained a post, ceased to send in their
reports, the article’s author emphasized that this example showed that a
student order could even be manipulated to commit acts of espionage, if
a “wily man” stood behind it. But failure in no way hindered Knigge –
he continued his personal odyssey in search of the ideal clandestine
organization, until he found in Weishaupt a worthy companion, equally
determined to rule the world.7
Luckert’s source was the counter-revolutionary journal
Eudämonia oder Deutsches Volksglück: Ein Journal für Freunde von Wahrheit und Recht
[Eudämonia or the Happiness of Germany: A Journal for the Friends of
Truth and Justice], extant from 1795 to 1798. (If Luckert had doubts,
however, the paragraph cited above would have included cautionary
prepositions such as “according to,” “it is claimed” or “we are led to
believe,” etc.) The “Eudämonists” were reactionary
ex-Illuminati/Masons-turned-conservatives. Authors such as L. A. C. von
Grolmann (1741-1809), J. A. Starck (1741-1816), H. A. O. Reichard
(1751-1828) and L. A. Hoffmann (1760-1806) – all former Illuminati
except for Starck.
8
Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwig, Baron von Knigge (1752 Bredenbeck, Germany – 1796 Bremen, Germany) -Philo (Judaeus)-
One of Knigge’s friends and defenders, the revolutionary activist and
widely-read liberal journalist, G.F. Rebmann (1768-1824) was known to
also have been a member of a student order – the Black Brothers. (And
he’s listed in Schuttler’s
Die Mitglieder des Illuminatenordens, but with an asterisk i.e. not confirmed).
9 Rebmann was a supporter of the French Revolution,
once praised the Illuminati as the precursors of the Jacobins, and was a favourite target of the Eudämonists.
In 1792/93, apparently the Erlangen authorities were after Rebmann
for incendiary writings. “According to one published report,” wrote
Luckert:
during the course of his flight to asylum, he stopped off
in Göttingen, where he was given a hearty reception by his “brothers,”
the members of the Black order, as a “martyr for the order’s
principles.” During the course of the festivities, Rebmann regaled the
audience, which also included non-members, with the tale of his flight
to freedom. He succeeded in escaping with the aid of two accomplices – a
“black brother” and his wife who lived in a neighbouring city. The
couple drove up in a carriage to his hideout in Erfurt and Rebmann was
able to escape by concealing himself under the woman’s skirts.10
Another link between the student orders and the Illuminati concerns
the activities of Illuminatus J. L. J. Greineisen (1751-1831).
11
Greineisen was arrested for giving “Jacobin” speeches at the
University of Giessen and for “participating in an illegal student
order.” The Eudämonist Grolmann was directly involved in Greineisen’s
persecution and subsequent conviction, and recounted that “the
authorities found in his possession some papers that not only contained
what they determined were many principles of Illuminatism, but a
completed new grade for a student order. In addition, Grolman cited one
of these confiscated documents, which urged members to seek out and make
friendly contact with the Illuminati.”
12
Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig von Beulwitz (1755 Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Germany – 1829) -Claude Fleury-
German idealist, philosopher J. G. Fichte (1762-1814) was another
target of the counter-revolutionaries. He was accused of being an
atheist, an Illuminatus (though he wasn’t),
13
and a corruptor of youth. Fichte’s unwavering support for the French
Revolution, even during the Great Terror, hardly helped the situation.
(The Eudämonists didn’t know it at the time, but Fichte became a member
of the Rudolstadt Masonic Lodge ‘Günther zum stehenden Löwen,’ in 1794.
The Master of the Lodge was none other than F. W. L. von Beulwitz
(1755-1829), the head of the Rudolstadt Illuminati since 1784.)
14
Fichte was appointed professor of philosophy at the University of
Jena in 1794, where he was “a sensational lecturer, attracting streams
of students who became his personal devotees. He eloquently preached the
liberty and equality of all men, lectured on Sundays,
became involved in the affairs of the student orders, and engaged in journalistic controversy on the nature of God.”
15 This conforms to what the Eudämonists wrote, that Fichte “held secret meetings at night with students.”
16
In addition, it is now known that Fichte, while a student at Leipzig,
became a member of the Black brothers/Harmonists (c. 1781/82).
17
They were still active at the University of Jena while he was there.
In fact, the Harmonists’ Lodge ‘Christian among the Seven Golden Stars,’
mentioned above (which was suppressed in 1796), was in Jena.
18
In 1795, however, Fichte criticized the student orders for
“encouraging drunkenness, debauchery and duelling,” which resulted in a
disruption of his lectures followed by insults and the stoning of his
house.
19
During the Napoleonic Wars German nationalism took hold and the old student orders were displaced with
Burschenschaften.
The dream arose that the liberation of the fatherland
would result in a spiritual revival and territorial unification of the
German people. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) provided the
intellectual legitimacy for this cultural nationalism with political
consequences in the winter of 1807-8, in his Reden an die Deutsche Nation
(Speeches to the German Nation). And Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769-1860)
continued the emotional tone in 1813 in the song he composed with the
question ‘Where is my German Fatherland?’, with the reply ‘as far as the
German tongue rings’. His article Über den deutschen Studentenstaat, in which he pinned great hopes on the student generation of that time, also found great resonance in the academic world.
Under the influence of this new spirit, student movements emerged in
many cities. In Berlin, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852) – the founder
of the gymnastics movement – together with his friend, the philosophy
professor much admired in student circles, Jakob Friedrich Fries
(1773-1843), started in 1811 the secret student association Deutscher Bund
which would prepare them for the coming war of liberation. Two years
later, students from Jena with support of some professors founded a
first Urburschenschaft under the motto ‘Ehre, Freiheit,
Vaterland’. It was a fighting German national association, which aimed
to promote the establishment of a liberal constitutional state for the
whole of the fatherland.20
This helps put into perspective a curious and descriptive account,
found in an 1813 official report from Mainz special police commissioner,
auditor to the Council of State, intelligence bureau chief for Germany,
François-Charles de Berckheim [Baron Franz Karl von Berckheim
(1785-1836)]:
Monseigneur, they write to me from Heidelberg … that a
great number of initiates into the mysteries of Illuminism are to be
found there.
These gentlemen wear as a sign of recognition a gold ring on the
third finger of the left hand; on the back of this ring there is a
little rose, in the middle of this rose is an almost imperceptible dint;
by pressing this with the point of a pin one touches a spring, by this
means the two gold circles are detached. On the inside of the first of
these circles is the device: “Be German as you ought to be”; on the
inside of the second of these circles are engraved the words “Pro
Patria.”21
There were more radical, conspiratorial, and revolutionary groups within the Urburschenschaft, such as the
Unbedingten
(Unconditionals) and the “Giessen Blacks” – Karl Follen (1796-1840) and
his protégé, Karl Sand (1795-1820) were amongst its leaders. Sand would
politically assassinate the conservative dramatist August von Kotzebue
in 1819, which led to the Carlsbad Decrees and the repression known as
the
Demagogenverfolgung. Follen was suspected of being involved
and he eventually fled to Chur, Switzerland. “None of Follen’s
political associates in Jena had the slightest doubt that he was a
‘German devil’ and a ‘bloody revolutionary.’”
22
Prussian historian Heinrich von Treitschke would famously describe
Follen as a “petty Robespierre … endowed with great terroristic powers.”
23
A recent remarkable biography of Karl Follen consolidates and
assesses the scattered, but increasingly voluminous research into his
life and times.
24
Follen et al. – the Giessen Blacks and the Unconditionals – it turns
out – were akin to terroristic nihilists. On July 1st in the same year
as the Kotzebue assassination there was a failed attempt on the life of
Karl von Ibell (1780-1834) by a Giessen Black and Follen associate, Karl
Löning (1791-1819). Löning was arrested, imprisoned, and committed
suicide by swallowing broken glass. Löning was practically brainwashed,
much like Sand, by the rhetoric of the radicals in Jena and Giessen.
Reminiscent of the all-too-familiar Muslim Jihadists, Löning was
convinced he was doing “something good, which pleased God and humanity.”
Friedrich Münch (1799-1881), a friend of both Karl and his brother Paul
Follen, wrote that Karl Follen wished “to intimidate government
authorities” and make them think “that his secret conspiracy of
political murderers could strike anytime and anywhere they chose to.”
25
Löning’s justification for the attempted assassination was in whole
the doctrine of Karl Follen, Jakob Fries, the Giessen Blacks and the
Unconditionals. “Follen may not have directly ordered Sand and Löning to
murder specific individuals,” writes Spevack; “he did, however,
explicitly recommend murder to them as a political tool as often as he
could.”
26
In Spevack’s book the doctrine espoused is described as the
“principal of conviction,” while Treitschke calls it a “cult of personal
conviction”:
It was bluntly declared that for the righteous man no law
was of account. What the reason recognises as true must be realised by
the moral will, at once, unconditionally, uncompromisingly, even to the
point of annihilating all those who hold different opinions; there
cannot be any talk of a conflict of duties, for the realisation of the
reason is a moral necessity. This proposition was known simply as “the
principle,” and it was on its account that Follen’s confidants termed
themselves the “Unconditionals.” To the members of this sect it seemed
that anything was permissible for the sake of popular freedom - lying,
murder, or any other crime - for no one had the right to withhold
freedom from the people.
Thus did the evangel of the overthrow of all moral and political
order make its first appearance in Germany, that terrible theory which,
under many different cloaks, was ever and again to disturb the century,
and which was finally to receive its extremest development in the
doctrine of the Russian nihilists. But Follen draped his nihilism in a
Christian mantle: Jesus, the martyr of conviction, was the
Unconditionals’ hero; their association-song declared “A Christ shalt
thou become!”27
In 1819 the assassinations of the Duchess Dowager of Russia, as well
as Czar Alexander I, were also contemplated by the Follen
Unconditionals.
28
Russia was, after all, integral to the Holy Alliance and the
Metternichian suppression of real and imagined revolutionaries. Kotzebue
was assassinated because of his ties to the court of Russia, as well as
his vilification of various radical factions within Germany.
The Kotzebue assassination had an “electric effect on wavering revolutionaries,” wrote James H. Billington.
29
Chief among them was the Filippo Buonarroti (1761-1837) accomplice –
Mason and Carbonaro, Philadelphe and a Sublime Maître Parfait – Joachim
Paul de Prati (1790-1863). To Prati, this was a striking example of the
“power of fanaticism,” and an inspiring “signal for a general combat.”
…from that moment all my mind became as it were inflamed
for political strife; from that moment I plunged headlong in a continual
series of conspiracies and revolutionary commotions.30
It was while in exile in Chur that Karl Follen had met Prati,
31
and, together with Wilhelm Snell (1789-1851) committed to forming a conspiratorial triumvirate-junta, in April 1820.
Twelve men, from different countries, should act as
leaders. Each of the twelve were entitled to form as many secret
societies as they thought proper, in order to associate the army, the
nobility, the students, the craftsmen, and others, whilst the political
creed was adapted according to their peculiar notions, but leaving them
in the dark as to the first and more secret union. Thus the mysterious
“Männerbund” was established with the aim to unite and republicanise
Germany, whilst for the students the “Jünglingsbund” was organized. It
was planned to recruit political associates in Italy, France and
Germany. Snell left for Germany, Follen for Paris, Prati for Italy.
Follen was in Paris from May-July 1820, where he met Voyer d’Argenson
and Joseph Rey, who had founded in 1816 at Grenoble a secret society
“Union”, of which in Paris Lafayette and Voyer d’Argenson were members.
Implicated in the conspiracy of Nantil, 19th August 1820, Rey fled to
Switzerland. There, at the end of that year, he met Prati and Wilhelm
Snell, and then discussed plans to internationalize “Union” and the
“Männerbund”. The “Männerbund” was dependent, as was stated in the
“mémoire” for Metternich “on that secret centre which has secretly
directed the greater part of the secret societies of Europe for years”.
In other words: on Buonarroti.32
Follen’s Jünglingsbund (Youth League) seems to have been formed, but the directing body, Männerbund (League of Men) was not.
The 1820s were a prime time for secret societies of all stripes.
Follen’s exploits and connections enabled him – however briefly – to rub
shoulders with the “crème de la crème” of the European-wide
revolutionary movement. He stayed in Switzerland until 1824, escaping
the authorities in Germany and Prussia for five years. Finally, he
realized it wasn’t safe any longer and fled for good to the United
States. Through the aid Lafayette, Karl Follen was accepted into the
faculty at Harvard, becoming the University’s first professor of German.
***
1 See René Le Forestier,
Les Illuminés de Bavière et la Franc-Maçonnerie Allemande
[Paris: 1915], Archè reprint, 2001, p. 29, quoting from the Bavarian
government interrogation of Massenhausen in 1787. Weishaupt confirmed
the account as well, in his 1790 book
Pythagoras. “[H]e had
admitted, in his own defense,” wrote Steven Luckert, “that he had
received the idea of forming a secret society from a student, and that
the founding members of the Illuminati order were, for the most part,
his current or former pupils” (in
Jesuits, Freemasons, Illuminati,
and Jacobins: Conspiracy theories, secret societies, and politics in
late eighteenth-century Germany, Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1993, pp. 588-9).
2
Referring, of course, to the fact that Frederick William became an
initiate of the Golden and Rosy Cross and a determined adversary of the
Illuminati and the Enlightenment (see
Perfectibilists, pp. 19-20, 24-25 and notes).
3
Epstein was writing in 1966, before the membership studies of Richard
van Dülmen and Hermann Schüttler. With the publication of Schüttler’s
Die Mitglieder des Illuminatenordens 1776-1787/93
[The Members of the Order of the Illuminati 1776-1787/93] (Munich: Ars
Una 1991), in particular, it seems very likely that the impossibility of
the situation has definitely become feasible (should someone wish to
undertake such a study).
4 The Genesis of German Conservatism, Princeton University Press, 1966, p. 84.
5 Le Forestier, op. cit., pp. 704-5.
6 Zucht und Leben der deutschen Studenten, 1648-1848 (Berlin: Limpert, 1941), p. 118.
7 Luckert, op. cit., pp. 589-90.
8 See
Perfectibilists, op. cit., pp. 121-3 and notes.
9
In the Rebmann bio in Schüttler (p. 123), we read: “Mitglied der
‘Schwarzen Brüder’ in Göttingen” [Member of the ‘Black Brothers’ in
Göttingen].
10 Luckert, op. cit., p. 594.
11
Listed as a member in Schüttler, op. cit., p. 63; it’s suspect,
however, because there is only one citation for the claim, and though it
is a reliable one, the work is far from a primary source: Manfred
Agethen,
Geheimbund und Utopie. Illuminaten, Freimaurer und deutsche Spätaufklärung (München 1987), p. 189.
12 Luckert, op. cit., p. 595.
13
A good many of Fichte’s friends were indeed Illuminati, and he was
active as a Mason in the 1790s. For a meticulous look into Fichte’s
association and correspondences with Masons and Illuminati, see the
excellent work Radrizzani et al.,
J.G. Fichte: Philosophie de la maçonnerie et autres textes (Vrin: 1995).
14 See Ibid., p. 167 and Schüttler, op. cit., p. 23.
15 R.R. Palmer,
The Age of Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800 – II: The Struggle, Princeton University Press, 1970, pp. 449-50.
16 Luckert, op. cit., p. 591.
17 Bernhard Schroeter (ed.),
Für Burschenschaft und Vaterland: Festschrift für den Burschenschafter und Studentenhistoriker Prof. Dr. Peter Kaupp, Jena 2006, p. 207.
18 Ibid., p. 206.
19 Immanuel Kant, Arnulf Zweig (ed.),
Correspondence (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 527; cf. Luckert, op. cit., p. 592.
20 Gevers and Vos, “Student Movements,” in Walter Rüegg (ed.),
A History of the University in Europe: Volume 3, Universities in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (1800-1945), Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 273.
21 Nesta H. Webster,
Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, A & B Publishers Group, 1998, p. 259.
22 Jürgen Heideking, James A. Henretta (eds.),
Republicanism and Liberalism in America and the German States, 1750-1850 (Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 240.
23 Heinrich von Treitschke, Eden & Cedar Paul (trs.),
Treitschke’s History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century, v. 3, London: 1917, p. 606.
24 Edmund Spevack,
Charles Follen’s Search for Nationality and Freedom: Germany and America, 1796-1840 (Harvard University Press, 1997).
25 Ibid., pp. 77-8.
26 Ibid., p. 79.
27 Treitschke, op. cit., p. 71.
28 Spevack, op. cit., p. 80.
29 James H. Billington,
Fire in the Minds of Men (Basic Books, 1980), p. 138.
30 Ibid.
31
Curiously, Prati was for a time a teacher at Illuminatus Pestalozzi’s
communitarian school at Yverdon, and had even become a practising
Mesmerist: see, Richard Haven, “Dr. de’Prati: A Note and a Query,” in
Victorian Periodicals Newsletter, No. 16, [Vol. 5, No. 2] (Jun., 1972), p. 47.
32 Arthur Lehning, “Buonarroti and His International Secret Societies” in
International Review of Social History (1956), I, p. 125.
http://www.bavarian-illuminati.info/
