Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

Adam Weishaupt was born on February 6, 1748 in Ingolstadt in the Electorate of Bavaria. Weishaupt's father Johann Georg Weishaupt (1717–1753)
died when he was five years old. After his father's death he came under the tutelage of his godfather Johann Adam Freiherr von Ickstatt who, like his
father, was a professor of law at the University of Ingolstadt. Ickstatt was a proponent of the philosophy of Christian Wolff and of the Enlightenment,
and he influenced the young Weishaupt with his rationalism. Weishaupt began his formal education at age seven at a Jesuit school. He later enrolled
at the University of Ingolstadt and graduated in 1768[9] at age 20 with a doctorate of law. In 1772 he became a professor of law. The following year
he married Afra Sausenhofer of Eichstätt.

After Pope Clement XIV’s suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, Weishaupt became a professor of canon law, a position that was held exclusively
by the Jesuits until that time. In 1775 Weishaupt was introduced to the empirical philosophy of Johann Georg Heinrich Feder of the
University of Göttingen. Both Feder and Weishaupt would later become opponents of Kantian idealism.

Founder of the Illuminati

On May 1, 1776 Weishaupt formed the "Order of Perfectibilists". He adopted the name of "Brother Spartacus" within the order. Though the Order
was not egalitarian or democratic, its mission was the abolition of all monarchical governments and state religions in Europe and its colonies.

Founded in 1776, shortly before the American Revolution, the Bavarian Illuminati were a secret society with a revolutionary ideology, and
a centralized structure. According to Abbé Barreul (also a Jesuit), they subverted the Masonic lodges of Europe, and were one of the key driving forces
behind the French Revolution. New members were gradually initiated into the group's radical ideas, which, according to Barreul, were atheist
and anarchist in essence.

Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism (written in French, but translated into English and first published in 1798-1799) is a book by the French Jesuit, the Abbé Augustin Barruel. In the book, Barruel claims that the French Revolution was the result of a deliberate conspiracy or plot to overthrow the throne, altar and aristocratic society in Europe. The plot was allegedly hatched by a coalition of philosophes, Freemasons, and the Order of the Illuminati. The conspirators created a system that was inherited by the Jacobins who operated it to its greatest potential. The Memoirs purports to expose the Revolution as the culmination of a long history of subversion. Barruel was not the first to make these charges but he was the first to present them in a fully developed historical context and his "evidence" was on a quite unprecedented scale. Barruel wrote each of the first three volumes of the book as separate discussions of those who contributed to the conspiracy. The fourth volume is an attempt to unite them all in a description of the Jacobins in the French Revolution. Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism is representative of the criticism of the Enlightenment that spread throughout Europe during the Revolutionary period.

Barreul was very conservative, and his translator, Robert Edward Clifford, likewise. However, Barreul was a serious historian, even though he wrote from a decidedly non-neutral point of view. As a contemporary, he was able to view the primary source documents and interview participants. As such this book is today, in and of itself, a primary source. Here are a few quotes from his book titled Code of the Illuminati: Part III of Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, by A Barruel, tr. Robert Edward Clifford [1798], at sacred-texts.com

"With such qualities, and under such auspices, was born in Bavaria, about the year 1748, Adam Weishaupt, better known in the annals of the sect by the name of Spartacus. To the eternal shame of his Serene protector, this impious man, heretofore Professor of Law at the University of Ingolstadt, but now banished from his country as a traitor to his Prince and to the whole universe, peacefully at the court of Ernest Lewis, Duke of Saxe Gotha, enjoys an asylum, receives a pension from the public treasury, and is dignified with the title of Honorary Counsellor to that Prince.

An odious phenomenon in nature, an Atheist void of remorse, a profound hypocrite, destitute of those superior talents which lead to the vindication of truth, he is possessed of all that energy and ardour in vice which generates conspirators for impiety and anarchy. Shunning, like the ill-boding owl, the genial rays of the sun, he wraps around him the mantle of darkness; and history shall record of him, as of the evil spirit, only the black deeds which he planned or executed."

p. 405

"them with not imitating the submission of the followers of those holy founders. 5 His most celebrated adepts have declared, that they had observed him copying them throughout his code; 6 they must also have remarked, that Weishaupt, in planning his systems according to the forms adopted by those religious founders, had reserved it to himself to add all the artifices which the most infernal policy could suggest. At the actual period when this conspirator formed his plans, he was ignorant of the object of Freemasonry: 7 He only knew that the fraternity held secret meetings: he observed that they were bound by mysterious ties, and recognized each other for brethren by certain signs and words, whatever might be their country or religion. In his mind, therefore, he combined the plan of a society, which was at once to partake as much as convenient of the government of the Jesuits, and of the mysterious silence and secret conduct of Masonry. Its object was, the propagation of the most Antisocial Systems of ancient Illuminism, and of the most Antireligious Systems of modern Philosophism."

As we can read, this peer of Weishaupt (also a Jesuit) is saying that this Jesuit Weishaupt created the Illuminati based upon Freemasonry and the "Society of Jesuits" and he was directly involved in the French Revolution. Here again the Jesuits are on both sides of the issue, they are always on both sides of the wars they create (e.g., the US Civil War), religions theories i.e., Preterism and Futurism. If the Jesuits were behind creating Freemasonry and the Illuminati and the French Revolution which lead to the "age of enlightenment) and democracy do you think they could still be ruling the world in secrecy?

Weishaupt wrote: "the ends justified the means." The actual character of the society was modeled on the Jesuits, and was an elaborate network of spies and counter-spies. Each isolated cell of initiates reported to a superior, whom they did not know, a party structure that was effectively adopted by some later groups.

Weishaupt was initiated into the Masonic Lodge "Theodor zum guten Rath", at Munich in 1777. His project of "illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason, which will dispel the clouds of superstition and of prejudice" was an unwelcome reform. Soon however he had developed gnostic mysteries of his own, with the goal of "perfecting human" nature through re-education to achieve a communal state with nature, freed of government and organized religion. He began working towards incorporating his system of Illuminism with that of Freemasonry.

He wrote: "I did not bring Deism into Bavaria more than into Rome. I found it here, in great vigour, more abounding than in any of the neighboring Protestant States. I am proud to be known to the world as the founder of the Illuminati."

Weishaupt's radical rationalism and vocabulary was not likely to succeed. Writings that were intercepted in 1784 were interpreted as seditious, and the Society was banned by the government of Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria, in 1784. Weishaupt lost his position at the University of Ingolstadt and fled Bavaria.

Activities in exile

He received the assistance of Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1745–1804), and lived in Gotha writing a series of works on illuminism, including A Complete History of the Persecutions of the Illuminati in Bavaria (1785), A Picture of Illuminism (1786), An Apology for the Illuminati (1786), and An Improved System of Illuminism (1787). Adam Weishaupt died in Gotha on 18 November 1830. He was survived by his second wife, Anna Maria (née Sausenhofer), and his children Nanette, Charlotte, Ernst, Karl, Eduard, and Alfred. Weishaupt was buried next to his son Wilhelm who preceded him in death in 1802.

Contemporary Opinion

John Robison, a professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh University in Scotland and a member of a Freemason Lodge there, said he had been asked to join the Illuminati. After consideration he concluded that the Illuminati were not for him. In 1798 he published a book called Proofs of a Conspiracy in which he wrote: "An association has been formed for the express purposes of rooting out all the religious establishments and overturning all existing governments ... the leaders would rule the World with uncontrollable power, while all the rest would be employed as tools of the ambition of their unknown superiors." This book was sent to George Washington, who replied:

It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am. The idea that I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavoured to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or pernicious principles of the latter (if they are susceptible of separation).

The head of the Jesuits (the black pope)