Part Two: A Complete History of the Illuminati

to only exist for TV. I wanted it to be kind of a perpetual art project. So I found an on the internet archive a complete repository of every episode of Walker Texas Ranger, and I have it set up so that they're just always playing on my television, even when it's off. So anytime I turn on my TV, there's just automatically Walker Texas Ranger happening, just a low res It looks like TV's from the nineties used to look,

and it's it's really done. Wonders for my mental health, just that it's a little health hack for all of you people. I don't know if wonders is the right word. It has had an impact on your mental health. It sure has had an impact. I've learned how to do roundhouse kicks, which I've I've I've come to support as like the primary method by which society should be organized. I think that's my illuminati. It's all going to be roundhouse kick based. I mean, honestly, be an imbrovement. Yeah,

it's it's pretty good. Um, some of the most racist things I've ever seen. Um, there's there's an episode that's like set in the past when they're all cowboys and like Walker's partner in the TV show is like in the normal show is like a black Texas ranger And in the episode in the past, he's a former slave who was taught how to be a doctor by his master.

And when he tells the Mormon missionaries they're hanging out with it he used to be a slave, They're like, oh, that's so terrible, and he's like, no, it was fine. It is wild. The things you used to get away with on nineties Steefee, Yeah, good stuff, good stuff. Margaret kill Joyce, have you ever created a secret society? God damn it, you were just telling us about this, so I know, yeah, I know. Okay, so I like ten years ago backed you up, Magpie, you have obligation to

tell this story. No, no, it's it's fine. The worst the consequences of starting secret society have already happened, which is that we started a secret society. We've We've put out a pamphlet we claimed to have been around for several thousand years. We distributed it at a few places. Yeah, yeah, exactly, and that's why I was like laughing so hard. It's like I was like, what an asshole? Why would you

do that? And in the back it had this, you know, if you would like more information, please write to the following physical address, because we decided that that was like spookier than an email address, you know. Um. And then within six months, the house that was that the address burned down. Oh do you know why? I don't know. I have no idea why the house burned down. Okay, curious, huh law interesting? Yeah, should should have bought a po box huh yeah. Yeah, it was a it was an

amateur mistake. Yeah. That's why people cannot currently send us anything. As a fan post on the subreddit that their package got sent back, it's because we need to get a po box set up, but that would this is leaving my house. This is Secret Society advice one oh one, get a box, or use the address of an enemy, maybe someone who you think is like at risk of losing their mind, and just have them suddenly receive hundreds of letters from strangers around the world. You think they're

the center of a conspiracy. That's actually where the story will end in like three or four episodes. That so tracks very clearly. We're talking about the the Aluminati, which has just been formed by Adam Weishop, and he has decided the way to save the world is to lie to a bunch of rich people and make them think they're wizards so he can buy nice books. That is the center of the actual Illuminati conspiracy theory. So there is a conspiracy theory. It's just a lot funnier than

I think most people tend to believe. So one of the things that's interesting to me is that kind of like as the organization changed over time, the main thing about it, because Adam goes through some ideological shifts himself. The main thing that's consistent about the Illuminati is that he's lying to nearly everyone in it, right, That's like the most, like the part of it that carries through

the most. So he recruits a couple of dozen people successfully, but then kind of like stalls out and can't get more people. And he gets some advice that like, well, maybe if you join the Masons, you could like recruit people from within the Masons and that would allow us

to like get some more blood in the organization. So he owns joins a Masonry organization, like a Masonic lodge in munich Um, and his plan there is he wants to like rise up high enough that he can get his own official lodge and started an ingolstat and then kind of move the Illuminati into this Masonic lodge that he creates and just have this Masonic lodge actually be the Illuminati. So he's basically trying to like incept a secret society within the Freemasons because it will help him recruit.

I mean, so it's entry ism. It's like the yeah, the communist tendency of entryism. Like this sort of thing happens a lot with these like esoteric groups and these secret societies and orders like this. This this style of growing your own little weird cult is very consistent. Like this is this is a technique that gets used like even even even till today, but across a lot of the different kind of orgs that popped up that were like inspired by the Illuminati and by the Freemasons. This

this thing happened a lot. This yes, this style nesting doll of conspiracy society exactly exactly like joining joining one group to like feed off their members and start your own branch off organization. And it's like it's very very consistent. Yeah, nothing, this says, this is a popular idea, Like there's only a tiny number of people are willing to do this. So we have to snipe each other. So we have to steal from another. We have to we have to

like is it is it actually a magpie? That's that bird that like lives in the nest of another bird? We have to do that. Oh no, that's Isn't that the cuckoo? Is that the cuckoo? I'm not good at birds? Magpie steal ship. Welcome to Behind the Book to podcast where we get into where Robert where Robert lists the

two facts about birds that he knows. Um so one of the it brings in this works really well and the fact that like he is now recruiting through a Masonic lodge for the Illuminati, and everyone knows who the Masons are. This brings in hundreds of new members, and one of these new members is a twenty eight year old diplomat from Hanover named a do Knig Knig. It's really weird, k n Igge. I'm just gonna pronounce it the way that that feels best to me. I don't care.

So secret societies and fraternities had been the coolest organizations in Knnig's world when he was a little kid. Um, he is a secret society nerd, and so as a teen he's reading everything he can about these new fraternal organizations spreading around Europe. He describes himself as a child as stricken with our era's greatest disease, a yearning for secret connections and orders. As a little boy, he'd actually created his own secret society and invited his friends to join.

They'd worn silver cross pendance and drawn up a list of by laws. I think I'm certain they excluded girls. Um it is. There's there's a very like Calvin and Hobbes aspect to this guy's childhood. Um, I hope they used a po box. Yeah, this child's house burned down after distributing its neighborhood in a lineage of secret mystics dating back to Anostic period. So Connig had maybe Connig

was a Canostic. So Connig had joined his local Masonic lodge and risen as soon as he could, right, because he's big marn for this stuff, and he had meat pretty very quickly, as quickly as possible, rises to the highest rank within his lodge. And then he's like, oh, really, is that all there isn yeah, I think it's a conneit he is? He is cone, Yeah, And Connig is like, was that all there is? Because this is just like

pronounce it but I really don't. Oh yeah, I mean that was part of part of my thinking on the matter too, But I think we should go with that bit. No, Conig is gonna be less problematic. So his first name huh yeah, we'll call Adolph. Yeah, that's a problem. There's no bad history with adults, so it's still such a common it. Really, it really is. This is all Stay good, Sophie. There's not a lot that's funny about Hitler, but it is kind of funny that he just torpedoed the German

equivalent to like Bill just nuked it. Good stuff. Good stuff. Every now and then when you're reading about, like particularly like German Jewish communities pre Holocaust, you'll run into like a German Jewish Adolph and be like, oh man, what an unfortunate name for you to have? In like nineteen thirty one. Yeah, so yeah, as a little boy, Kennig is all into these secret societies and he joins his local Masonic lodge. He gets as high as he can, and then he's like, is this really just like a

discount club for rich people? This is basically Costco with costumes. Yeah. So Adam gets very disappointed and he's hanging out in the lodge one day kind of bumming. Adam gets disappointed or so not Adam, m Adolph. It's disappointment Adolph, a little Adolf, and he's hanging around this lodge one day kind of bumming about the fact that the Masons are silly.

And then one of these dudes, because by this point Adam Bishopped has sent agents of the Illuminati out as recruiters to other lodges, and one of these people walks up to Connig and is like, you seem like you're kind of bored with the Masons, and Cannig is like, yeah, it's it's a little silly. And this guy's like, you know, there's a real secret society that's hidden in the Masons that only a small number of people get to join, and so yeah, he makes his pitch, um and uh yeah,

Connig is like, that's exactly my shit. And he goes to a bunch of his friends who are in the Masons and he tells them this guy really he says there's a secret society inside the Masons called the Illuminati, and I should join and his friends are like, I don't know, dude, it's probably bullshit, and boldly does not

listen to his friends. Um why Shop sends him a letter later that year where he thanks Kennig for his interest, and he's like, you must be a super smart guy to have figured out that the Masons there's nothing there, right, You're so smart. We think you're ready for our little organization. So this is like the secret truth. What's really funny, suckers, Yeah, exactly, we go to the group of suckers to get suckers.

What's gonna be really funny is when you learn why we know all this so Cannig ends up promising or Adam ends up getting Canig to join the Illuminati, in part because he promises to fund Kenig's experiments in alchemy, because he wants the guy to act as a recruiter. Cannig is very charismatic, he's very connected. He's a diplomat, so he's good at talking to people who's really respected.

And this proves to be probably the best administrative decision that Adam's going to make, because in a very short order Cannig is brought in more than five hundred new members. Wow. Oh yeah, he's very good at this. At the same time, Wishop succeeded in pushing changes to the Masonic by laws that allowed him to establish additional Illuminatus lodges in the

larger organization. In time, the Illuminati grew to around twenty five hundred men, although there's debate about whether there were ever more than like six or seven hundred active at a time, which seems reasonable. Well that it makes sense. Yeah, pretty good size for a secret society in this period of time. So the problem is that Connig rises through the ranks as he had with the Masons, basically immediately and he is not a dumb guy. He isn't at

least intelligent enough to realize something's up. And I'm going to quote from the book The Illuminati by the Charles River Press. The recruits began to raise their eyebrows, badgering Connig with questions about exactly who it was that they were serving. Up until this point, no one seemed to have an inkling as to who the other members of the Supreme Superiors were, apart from Bishop, and when Connig failed to produce these names, many began to grow wary.

Connig approached why Shop on a number of occasions, and he grew even more discouraged when Wishop dodged his questions in an effort to distract him. Cannig was tasked with composing pamphlets about recruiting guidelines and constant updates featuring the most minor of changes. By the next year, Cannig's patients had worn thin. It was only when Cannig threatened to walk that Wishop finally came clean. To Kennig's horror, Wi Shop admitted that the Supreme Superiors, the ancient texts behind

the topmost level of the Illuminati pyramid were entirely made up. So, yeah, Cannig learns there's absolutely nothing here now. At this point, Cannig's balls deep in the Enlightenment. He is very obsessed with these ideas of truth and openness that are kind of revolutionary in a Europe that was still largely run by Catholicism. He's offended by the fact that Wei Shops had lied and basically recreated this kind of system of

secrecy and lies, just in a different form. Adam realizes that Cannig is going to be a problem because he's got these kind of principles, and so he begs him not to tell anybody. He instead tells Canig that I've been waiting all this time. All this time, I've been building the Illuminati for a worthy collaborator on the great work of creating this organization, and quote, I have found none other than you who penetrates into the spirit of this system as deeply as I do. She said, yes,

meaning he's the only one that can smell the bullshit. Yeah, he's You're the only one who's realized I'm lying to everybody. So to keep Connig from leaving, he offers to let him write the curriculum for the Inner mysteries of the Illuminati. I mean that is the right call at this point. Yeah, that's that's smart move. It's kind of like if l Ron Hubbard had taken an apprentice to help him write about like Zenu or whatever. Connig takes the deal, but

he's not thrilled with it. He is devastated when he realizes the Illuminati is younger than him. But he's recruited all these guys. So a big part of why he doesn't leave is like he doesn't want to tell all of his friends that he got conned and that they all got conned too. Yeah, so he he is like he's like into deep. It's the sunk cost fallacy he now has. It's like he has like he has like

make it real now, Yeah, and he does. He writes a whole curriculum filled with the kind of elaborate magical rituals and ceremonies that were all the rage in Central Europe. Now this was the right thing to do for the Illuminati. But this really pisses off Adam Wi Shopped because Wi Shopped hates all that stuff and is only doing it to take money from rich people. The two fought constantly

and after four years, Connig resigned. Sources dissent on exactly why this happens, but there are claims he mess left in the middle of a loud fight shouting that Adam was a megalomaniac with delusions of grant Here so it ends the way all radical political organizations end. Connig would later write his version of events out in a pamphlet basically a Zane, which remains her best source of It is funny how all of this has never changed, so

good stuffin Yeah. So as an aside, I should note here because we've used Massimo Introviing as a source for a couple of these quotes here, one of the problems when you go to research the Illuminati is that it is a bitch to Google. I have used also a couple of different chat systems or a search systems, including an aipowered one. But like one of the problems with researching this is that a lot of the people who legitimately are experts on the Illuminati are also cranks themselves.

So that brings me back to Massimo Introviing, because I have quoted him a few times in the business is interesting. We got to talk about him just a second, now I have cross checked his rite up with other sources. His right up on the Illuminati is extensive and accurate. It's geared towards dispelling conspiracy theories, and it does this well. However, Massimo is, as I stated, a sociologist of religion. He's also an intellectual property attorney, which is interesting given the

connection between that and secret societies. He is very knowledgeable about the history of secret societies. He is also the founder of the Center for Studies on New Religions, which mostly exists to defend cults from governments trying to stop them from hurting people. Massimo has spent much of his career defending the Church of Scientology in court, and he has described as a cult apologist by his critics, although I believe he's a Roman Catholic. WHOA, that's interesting. Yeah,

he's an interesting guy. You run into a lot of dudes like he's one of the less sketchy people who writes about the Illuminati, because at least he's doing it from a historic basis. But he's also a professional cult apologist. It's very straight. Yeah, it will working for the largest established cult. Yeah, in the world. It's awesome. It's just it's fun. You keep running into shit like that as you like go through books and articles and are like, who is this guy who seems to know a lot

about these Adam vyshopped? Oh, he's a craik too. It's certainly interesting because like stuff like scientology does have a direct age back to this Bavarian illuminati. It sure does, yes, how it especially through like the Golden Dawn and Alistair Crowley, which I assue will get to at some point, we

sure will, Garrison. But speaking of Alistair Crowley, you know what Crowley would do if he were here right now by one of these products and services make money by selling Oh yeah, I mean our our podcast is supported by gold, and if you move all of your investments to gold, it will let you weather a financial crash so that your investments can live to see the next dawn. Dawn we go, there, we go, Okay, we're back. Good stuff. The greatest form of flattery is the sigh of recognition. Yeah.

I find the greatest form of flattery to be people giving me gold. Um, I would like to say that once I get the po box set up, send gold males gold. I'm gonna I'm gonna argue with you both, because I think the greatest form of flattery is becoming a cult apologist Roman Catholic who builds an entire website to defend the fallen Gong from the Chase government. Oh yeah, Garrison, that's where he's right up on. The Illuminati is hosted. No, this fullen Gong is such like boring as I know,

I know, I know, disappointing the Bavarian Illuminati. So all right, So Knig leaves and despite his absence, by this point, he's helped get the Illuminati to such a side that size that it's become quite large and influential. Um and relief because they no longer have to pronounce his name. Yeah, nobody has to deal with the problem of like trying to spell it's yeah, oh boy, what's called by his

first name. So by this point, as the Illuminati has actually grown somewhat influential, including a number of like moderately prominent thinkers in some political people in Central Europe, Adam's own ideology has grown ever more radical. In letters to his followers, he expressed political attitudes that were adjacent to anarchism. Quote, when man lives under government, he has fallen, his worth

is gone and his nature tarnished. So he has gotten pretty radical by this point, and Massimo, our cult apologist for a notes in his write up. One element that distinguished the Bavarian Illuminati from other German Masonic systems continued

to be its politics. Again, up to the degree of Scottish Knight, the rituals preached submission to the authorities, but in the more secretive degree of priest there were allusions to the advantages of replacing monarchy with republic, such as if the king is not the best of the citizens, let the best be king. So it's a little problematic. There's like elements of we should tear down the system, and also we should build a system whereby most people don't know that we want to tear down the system

because we can't trust them with that knowledge. And yeah, this is moving right along. But as with nig there are a few people who grow disillusioned with Adam's leadership, and one of them is a former member who starts popping up in bars in public places in Ingolstot, getting drunk and telling stories of the Illuminatis Initiation rituals. Now,

these are based off the Masonic ritual. You're sitting in this like blind room alone for a while, blindfolded, and then at some point the blindfold is taken off and you're kind of like wandering around this space that's been

set up to be kind of mind altering. His story includes like an empty red throne with a bunch of ceremonial robes, a skeleton lying on a table with a crown and a sword at his feet, and then at a certain point the initiative is taken to his feet and asked questions and he's hit in the face whenever

he answers them wrong. So you've got that aspect of it too, And there's you know, that's probably broadly accurate to what the initiation rituals were, but more lurid stories than that start to spread, both from former members and from people who were just lying in that way that people do, and this starts to provide fuel for a movement directly opposed to the Illuminati. And now we're going

to talk about the Rosa Crucians. Now we've mentioned them before, and I think I kind of derivatively referred to them as a fake secret society. Did I did get kind of upset in in your Plevatsky episodes when they are

a fake secret society, but not that way. Yes, So, the Rosa Crucians are an intellectual movement that's bubbled up in the early sixteen hundreds, and like the Illuminati, it began with a con a bunch of anonymous pamphlets that claim to be the writings of a man who definitely did not exist, and we're published again zine like claiming that a secret group called the Rosa Crucians were working to reform Europe's political order and use science to advance

my kind. Now again, the person that it was supposed to have written these never existed. But an actual movement in philosophy and theological fault thought evolves as a result of this and kind of in its wake because of how well it spreads. And so there are different secret societies that are like the Order of the Rosa Cross

that call themselves Rosicrucians. They're not necessarily connected in most cases by anything other than ideology, and they're not there's not like a central one that is the original one that we can specifically name, but there are different Rosicrucian societies up until the present day, where I just read an article about how the Rosicrucians, now that they don't need to be secret, are recruiting primarily on Facebook. Um yeah,

I like that makes sense. Yeah. And in terms of like viewing like like in terms of like thinking about their organic spread, they chapters and like different spin like splinter groups start this same way, like different food nut bombs chapters start around the country. Like it's like that that is this style of growth when it's like this decentralized zine format that are that are of pamphlets being passed off between you know, weirdos who are like reading

in the late sixteen hundreds. Well, in like food not bombs. The primary motivation informing chapters is less a desire to be a part of a specific organization and more adherence to a set of values and beliefs. Like it is and there's a there's a um, so what are their beliefs there a Crucians, Um, they're broadly they're they're not a secular organization, but they are broadly like pro science and pro kind of natural like using kind of natural

science to gain more knowledge about the world. But there are there are also there are elements of religious mysticism, to it as well, So they are kind of like a Christian religious mystic tradition that is also pro science. Would be the broadest way of describing it. I think, um, yeah again, most of like if you if you read like historians who are experts on this, they'll say that, like, well, there were there are Rosicrucian chapters, Rosicrucian societies more than anything.

The accurate way to view it is as an intellectual tradition that takes off across Europe, and the Rosicrucians are very influential, not just in their own societies, but within Masonry. A lot of Masons are Rosicrucians. And one of these Rosicrucian Masons who's in Bavaria is a guy named Johann von Volner who starts to organize a campaign against the Illuminati based on some of these rumors that are spreading in bars. He accuses y shopped not inaccurately, of promoting atheism.

In seventeen eighty three, four Illuminati members, all professors, are arrested and interrogated. They broke basically immediately testifying that the organization existed to disavow Christianity Furthermore, they said, the Illuminati and this is the thing that really pisses off everyone supports the right to commit suicide. Interesting. Yeah, that is a huge part of the campaign against them, that they are pro people having the right to commit suicide and

also the pro abortion. Like this, this is this is very I mean, this is not uncontroversial today. Yeah, so you can see why a bunch of dudes talking this kind of shit in the late seventeen hundreds are going to piss off the powers that be. And one of those these these university elites are talking about having bodily autonomy and voting and and and and not liking any kind of deity. They're they're they're closing themselves off from

the great blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah. Yea, yeah, Yeah, it's very because it's the it's complicated because they're all a bunch of like they've created this like very weird like series of lies to hide it. But like the core of illuminid ideology is people should be autonomous over their own bodies and maybe voting is better than kings. Yeah. Um, which up until about seven years ago, was not a

particularly controversial thing to preach in the West. Yeah. So word gets out about all of these these scandalous deeds to the King of Prussia, who orders the Berlin Lodge seized by police. In this in the Berlin Lodge are files and files of y Shop's political and social theories, all of which are deeply heretical. So this pisses off everybody even more, and an order is issued to the Freemasons by the King to cut all ties with the Illuminati.

The Mason swiftly disavowed the Illuminati, and Adam vyshopped, you know, finds himself kind of cut out and left in the cold, right, But as Cred goes through the roof, and then oh my, imagine all of the discourse going on at the time. Oh, it would be fascinating stuff. If all these people had had Twitter, it's so interesting. Go to Twitter threads and just like Randdom, people complaining about what's going on. Yeah, I hear they let you, I hear, I hear they

believe in the right to kill yourself. It would have been quite a time. So by seventeen eighty five, the Illuminati has been banned in Bavaria and all the cross Prussia bishopped attempted to carry on, and this time he's kind of truly underground because it is now in a legal secret society, and for a while they're able to keep up contact between the different parts of the Illuminati. They've got like writers traveling between these hidden lodges, bringing

like correspondence and books between them and stuff. And one of these guys who's also one of Oishop's closest advisors, is a man named Jacob Lands, and he is traveling from one cell in Bavaria to another Illuminati cell one day with like a big bag full of books and paperwork when he gets struck by lightning. Okay, so it's cool. There's a bunch of detail that I've given in this story,

like smoke about like specific conversations people had. We know that because this guy gets struck by lightning and his corps is found by the cops, and being German police, they take it all into evidence and it's preserved to this day. That's why all this is known, right, Like all of these papers were taken into evidence, and like people who do care about the actual history can go

read them like it's still available. This is like this is like this is like getting arrested when you're like scrolling on signal and now, yeah, a big problems and you got smited, yes, and yes, it's like you were clearly killed by God. They find your body with your phone open and they're like sweet, it's like some discworld shit and discworld. No one's an atheist because the gods go around and fucking murder you. Um, I'm going to

read a quote from the book Illuminati Again. Most damning of the indictments were the set of instructions drawn up by Why Shopped and Extress and addressed to the ostensibly active Illuminati members in Silesia. The members in Silesia were ordered to spy on the officials, engage the authorities knowledge and opinions of the order. They were also asked to provide input on who it was they believed had rated

out to the authorities. So like, literally it is he's open with his signal for his like crime loop being like, hey, guys, spy on the government. Is this has gotten considerably more cool like the past development. Yeah, so obviously the police don't like this and neither does the government. So there are more raids on more Illuminati safe houses because now they know where all of them are Um, they find more documents in the homes. They're a problem with this

style of organization. Let's just be honest. Yeah, yeah it is. And another problem is that again why shopped has continued putting out propaganda lying about the real nature of the Illuminati. So when they raid this dead guy's house they find all of these these like pamphlets about how the Illuminatis secret leadership has total mental control over its members and like they can't they can be commanded to do anything

and all. This is this is why you never ship post on Twitter, because it's going to be in court against you. They were ship posting. It gets the middle lot of trouble. There are also other documents found order arguing in favor of the right to abortion, the right of suicide, and in favor of atheism, all of which is dope. And now I'm going to read another quote from that book. That's very funny. You're gonna like this garrison most eye catching of all with a blue prints

fends scrupulous machinery and devices. Each diagram was given its own description. For example, there was one for printing knockoff official seals. Another showed a safe of sorts equipped with multiple locks, which would be used to stash classified documents. The last showed a device that produced false receipts which could be used for underground abortions, and one of the folders there was even evidence found of why Shop procuring an abortion for his sister in law, which is like,

this is exactly yeah. Yeah, Now they're not just advocating abortion, they're literally helping create the infrastructure to allow Yeah, it kind of seems like what happens because again five shops motivation is like I want to trade and move and like push illegal books on scholars and once they get actually banned as an organization, he's like, well, I guess let's create an underground abortion railroad. Yeah, which is we're doing. What we're doing is already a crime. Now we might

as well just do other crimes. Yeah. Unfortunately the Lightning guy. But you know, it was a good effort. It was a noble attempt. So the media at the time goes into overdrive at this point, painting the Illuminati as a conspiracy to overthrow all of the governments of the world. Now, this is far yet they hadn't they did want to, Okay, that is fair to say they weren't pro overthrowing the

governments of the world. They just didn't really and probably never would have had the ability to actually do this. And of course it's also worth noting most Illuminati members knew very little, if anything, of this. Yeah. In seventeen eighty seven, the same year the United States got its constitution, the Elector of Bavaria prescribed beheading for anyone found associated with the Illuminati. They are. It's interesting because they don't kill anyone over this. They arrest a bunch of people.

There are a number of folks, including y Shopped, are forced out of Bavaria. They have to like leave. But the folks who are like charged and like get in trouble and stay in Bavaria. They're allowed to keep living their lives. But they have a bunch of prescriptions placed against them. One of them is that they can never communicate with anyone else who was in the Illuminati, even if they're like at a bar having a beer, Like, they can be punished for so much as communicating with

anyone who had ever been in the Illuminati. I mean that still happens. I've had friends be like you can't talk to any other earth first or including your boyfriend ever again. Yep, it's another another tragic piece of continuity in radical history. So Adam flees the country. He winds up kind of holing up in a nearby city called Regensburg, where the local government offers him a yearly salary if

he promises not to make any more secret societies. They put them on that eater, Like Adam, like, we'll give you money. Stop doing this a huge problem for everybody that's wild. It's like it's like so funny. It's like it's like a it's like a government pay you not to not to like write anywhere anarchist text. Don't don't make any znes. We'll give you a salary if you stopped making znes. That's so funny. Um, as far as

we as far as we know, he takes it. Now, there are conspiracies that he basically goes underground and either sins agents or travels to the US and starts spreading spreading Illuminati values there. Um. But yeah, as far as we know he obeyed the edict. We we have a pretty good idea of what he spent his life doing.

Just because he writes a shitload more books. Um, he writes and these are all like, basically, he spins the rest of his life writing books and pamphlets defending the Illuminati against allegations against He's basically continually yeah, he's basically having like the eighteenth century equivalent of a flame war for the rest of his life, which is like thirty five more years, forty five more years. He kind of never gets over this, and he's always angry that people

have unfairly judged the Illuminati. But he dies around eighteen thirty. Doctor Tony Page, who translated one of Adam's defenses of himself,

summarized the man's life this way. Wischat's plan was to educate Illuminati followers in the highest levels of humanity and the morality, based on his teachings on the supremacy of reason, allied with the spirit of the golden rule of not doing to others what one would not wish done to one's self, so that if the Illuminati alumnis subsequently attained positions of significance and power, they could exert a benevolent

and uplifting influence upon society at large. His project was utopian and naively optimistic, and he himself was certainly not without flaws of character, but neither he nor his plan was evil or violent in and of themselves. It is one of the deplorable and tragic ironies of history that a man who tried to inculcate virtue, philanthropy, social justice, and morality has become one of the great hate figures

of twenty first century conspiracy thinking. And that is that is kind of sad um, Yeah, that that is not the legacy that you would want, as like a guy whose goal was to kind of spread enlightenment and knowledge in a more open society that like, you become sort of the central figure of obsession for the people who work to destroy that society. What's pieces of it get built? That is, I can't really think of another story that's

bleak in exactly that specific way. The whole the whole lineage of this illuminati thing has such an interesting like backfire effect. Yeah, it makes me like contemplate what what types of tactics are worth are worth using when in this in this type of like long term, long term

strategy of like passing down knowledge. Yeah, And I think an argument could be made that, like, well, probably part of why this backfire so much is that as much as he was committed to these Enlightenment virtues of openness, and like reason, he did it by lying and pretending to be teaching people magic. Like so maybe the fact that maybe that's part of why things went so bad,

it's probably not a non factor. Yeah, I mean, and it's like there's a reason that, say, at least leftism, at least anarchism does a similar trajector does this trajectory where you start off with like baccoon and is really into secret societies, and then eventually anarchists start moving away from sort of conspiratorial work and towards this like open organizing still of crime. Right, like in the nineteen twenties, I think in Germany the main people who were providing

abortions were syndicalists. And syndicalism is literally just a method by which to do crime at scale, but it's like open instead of closed, and it uses different types of things in order to provide safety. And it's interesting because I think, you know, he's a Bishops a little early to be calling there are very few people in this period calling themselves anarchists. No, No, I don't think anyone

is at this point. Yeah, But I mean, like just in terms of realism, but people did it is interesting people did, like elites in Europe who were angry and opposed to the Illuminati did accuse him of being an anarchist. Oh. Interesting, not unlike the pope, because again it's not that's not a term with much political meaning at that point, but it just means terrorist at the exact exactly. And I think he if he'd been a century lead, he might have been. I don't think he would have been a syndicalist.

He was kind of no, very fundamentally an elitist, right, Yeah, that's why the Illuminati is what it is. He would have been Blancy. Oh, I don't know much about them. Is the French guy who kind of predates Lenin in some ways. It's like it's kind of like a vanguardist. Yeah, very vanguardists, right, like you have to have this party and they have to hold power in certain ways to themselves.

And yeah, part of the story here is that we are still dealing with the side effects of how problematic that can be because all a lot of this is going to echo on through the ages. But you know what will echo on through the ages, most the dulcet tone gold these messages these to get you to buy

the gold. The products and services that support this podcast are like those pillars in the desert that are built to warn future people away from nuclear waste sites, but instead they're there to tell future people where value is and what promo codes they can use to get access to truly quality products and services. So have a gaze

at that. Ah, we're back. So the Illuminati they fall apart in kind of the mid to late seventeen eighties, and not all that long after the Illuminati gets banned and threatened with beheadings if they try to reform in seventeen huh, yeah, that's leg Yeah, right right around the time they start to be purged, the French Revolution starts, and not that long after, you know, it all comes

to an end in seventeen ninety nine. That's when the French Revolution kind of comes to its end, right after about a decade of pretty gnarly shit, would it would be fair to say, And the nature of the French Revolution, the fact that it comes so suddenly, the fact that it is so bloody, that it is such it so radically up ends the power balance in Europe. It's one of these things that like particularly elites in Europe, cannot

believe could happen organically. Now, obviously, if you actually look at the history of the French Revolution, it makes total sense everything economically that's happening, the measures of the ferment takes kind of as resistance to it spreads, like the different kinds of austerity that people are asked to endure. It makes total sense that there's a revolution, and it makes total sense anytime there's a revolution, there's a pretty good chance it's going to turn into a killing spree.

But people in Europe are like not normal people, like elites, particularly rich people in like England, are like something, this can't have happened organically, Like there must have been some sort of conspiracy behind this, And so they start looking at like, well, what are these French revolutionaries, Like what are these people? Especially if the early stages, like what are the three things they're all shouting for? Liberty, egality, and fraternity? Right, well, those are the same things the

Illuminati advocated. Yeah, we've we've just purged this thing in Central Europe that came out of the Masons that are speaking for this, and then there's a revolution just a few years later. Once these guys go underground in France. That can't be just a coincidence, right, Yeah, so I'm wondered. I now understand the connection. Thank you Robert for doing this podcast. Explain the French The Bavarian Illuminati caused the French Revolution. Oh yes, of a problematic number of people

are going to become convinced of that, Margaret. And one of those guys was an abbot. Again all these Catholic motherfuckers is always Yeah, it's an abbot named Augustine Berwell. And another guy who gets convinced is John Robinson, and Robinson writes attract with a banger title Proofs of a conspiracy against all the religions and governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading societies. Serious banger of a title. Now, I love Howers used

to be. I want to kind of go into some detail about how wrong he is, especially when he connects like the Masons and Reading societies to the overthrow of the French government. Because the Freemasons are, as we talked about, influential and spreading Enlightenment ideas, particularly in France. But one of the things that's happening in France with the Masons is that, like pretty much alone in the rest of Europe,

in France the Masons admit women. And this is because France is just a lot more advanced one and this is before the French Revolution, right, they start taking in female members and they are female Masonic lodges, which doesn't really happen anywhere else. This is going to be an extended digression, but I think it's worthwhile because what happens here is fascinating. I'm going to quote again from Janet Burke's paper in the Journal of the History of European Ideas.

Quote as they ascended to ever higher degrees, always after having mastered and lived the ideas and feelings of the preceding degree. The women were exposed to the Enlightenment concepts of liberty, equality, and even a budding, uniquely eighteenth century form of feminism. They were taught to understand their rights as women and demand them from the world dominated by men. Yet the force of fraternity remained strong. In each degree.

Bonds with both their Masonic sisters and their sisters outside the lodges were solidified through the ritual process. The powerful rituals the emotional bonds of sisterhood, the assertiveness of their incipient feminism, and the novel feelings of friendship as a union of virtuous souls made their impact on these women and altered the way they faced their day to day tasks.

From the wives of judicial nobility heavily populating some of the provincial lodges of adoption to the glittering court lodges in Paris, powerful women worked both alone and with their husbands to alter environments outside the lodge, just as they had done behind the closed doors of their temples. An intense spirit of independence, strong dedication to charity, an interest in new ideas, and profound loyalty to friends characterized many of these women. So contrad to this conspiracy theory, the

Freemasons in France are part of the ruling class. Now, there's a contribute, a contribution that is made to the revolution in that anytime you have a revolution, it often is preceded by an authoritarian regime, slightly opening up aspects of society and an attempt to release steam. This is a thing that has happened in a number of cases. There's a piece of that going on here. But it's interesting to discuss kind of how integrated to the power

structure female Masons often were. Princess Marie de l'embald, superintendent of the household of Queen Marie Antoinette, was one such a lady Mason. She was outspoken, a reformer who got in constant trouble for her refusal to throw the kind of giant, expensive, hideously wasteful parties that the French royal family was known for. This is a problem when you're

the superintendent of the queen's household. So eventually she gets fired because she's like protesting against the wastefulness of this kind of lifestyle that the court has, and she's pushed out of court until the revolution breaks out in seventeen eighty nine. Now, when that happens, all of the queen's like friends abandon her right, all of these kind of

courtly friends who'd been attending the parties. Marie de l'ambald, she's very much invested in these Masonic attitudes of fraternity, which for female Masons, a big part of what the female like Masonic lodges are pushing is not just solidy with other female Masons, but cross feminine solidarity in a

society that's male dominated. So even though she'd gotten fired by the queen for her beliefs, the Lambald comes back after the revolution breaks out to stand by her because of this kind of attitude of radical solidarity that she feels like she has to show for the Queen. Interesting she stays with her until the end, and in fact, when they are all captured by revolutionaries, Marita Lambald is beheaded.

Her corps is mutilated and it is left directly in front of the Queen's cell, so she has to look at it while her head is paraded around Paris. Now that's a bummer of a story, but I bring it up because it is also shows another really weird continuity to modern day conspiracy theorists starting in the seventeen nineties claimed the Masons in the Illuminati had started the revolution. In reality, a good number of the people massacred in

the terror were Masons. And this is kind of the start of a long pattern in conspiracy culture of blaming victims for their complicity and some sort of convoluted scheme that they were actually the victims of rather than the perfect ms. That goes back pretty far too well, that's what's always so funny about all this is like you're like, oh, the connection of QAnon and stuff, which I'm excited to hear more about later. But it's like, the cranks are

not the conspiracists. They're the conspiracy theorists. The people who spent around the conspiracy is the people conspiring about the conspiracy. Yeah, the conspiracy. The conspiracy is Marie de Lombald being having like coming to the conclusion that it is important to show radical solidarity with other women and then dying for it. Likes,

that's the conspiracist in this case. Right. Anyway, none of what actually happens in France matters because by this point it has become a conspiracy theory, and in very short order, Barrowell and Robinson's tracks traveled across the pond to a little place you might have heard of called the United States of America, where a Massachusetts ministers. Oh you're not gonna like it anymore, is the story goes on, Margaret.

A Massachusetts minister named Jedediah Morse comes across them, and he grows obsessed with the Illuminati, which he decides is still out there and was clearly responsible for why things in France went so bad, so he dedicates he starts preaching and writing tracks about how the Illuminati is out there trying to quote, root out, and abolish Christianity and overturn all civil government. Now, Jedediah Morse is a textbook author as well as a preacher, so he had a

lot of influence. And his ship spreads, and it spreads, and it spreads. On May nineteenth, seventeen ninety eight, President John Adams had proclaimed a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer, but Morse did not give a lecture on any of those topics. From a write up and slate quote in that day's speech, Morse unspooled a bizarre conspiracy theory, alleging that a shadowy cabal the villains called the Illuminati, an offshoot of the Freemasons, were aiming to destroy everything

that Americans held dear. This group of philosophers, zealous, according to Morse, had secretly extended its branches through a great part of Europe and even into America. Their goal was to abolish Christianity, private property in nearly every foundation of good order around the world. According to Morse, they opposed marriage, encouraged people to explore all kinds of sensual pleasures and

proposed a promiscuous intercourse among the sexes. Oh shit, this is just this is just your average Yeah, he has a normal Republican member of Congress. Yeah, so whereas like a lot of people are like yeah, yeah, I know that, but just but notwith pretending like it's bad. Yeah yeah, but that's all fine. Yeah, that's all like normal stuff. Yeah, I'm going to continue that quote. Morsk told his congregation that the Illuminati hoped to infect the people of America

through a kind of cultural warfare. They were spreading their doctrines by worming their way in among reading and debating societies. The reviewers, journalists or editors of newspapers or other periodical publications. The booksellers and postmasters. Oh my god, it's just the culture wars coming for the libraries. The culture war has never stopped. I bet those people protecting drag shows are

the Illuminati. Now. One of the things that Morse also points out is that there are even some influential members of the Founding Fathers who were illuminatus. You want to guess who he names? Franklin, No, Jefferson, No, Neither those guys are basing Pain. That's exactly right. Thomas Paine famed Illuminatus, which is not me, is nothing but a compliment to

Thomas Pain. Yeah, yeah, totally the only truly based Founding father Franklin kept wanting to be based and they kept being like, or I could buy people, and his friends were like, no, you were against that. Yeah he gotta well, I don't know. Yeah, he became an abolitionist. Um okay, yeah, he just was not. Like. One of the things that one of the reasons Pain gets picked is that Pain is very, especially by the end of his life, very anti christian He write, like, writes a book of critiques

against Christianity. Um yeah, in a way that's like, which is like, you know, sketching at the time. This is the eighteen hundreds. Yeah, um, sometimes I'm not afraid like writing a fucking book against Christianity, and yeah, I'm willing to take a stand against Christianity in the year eighteen hundred and fucking dot Ye it's yeah, he he's a bold man. And again Morris is a piece of shit, but solid pick from member of the illuminati among the

Founding generation. Yeah. Yeah, the Bernie Sanders of the Yeah, it was like, oh that guy, he's a little different frank. Yeah. Now, other notable figures in America at the time who jumped onto the Illuminati conspiracy bandwagon included the president of Yale and the attitude like this guy's attitude. The Yale President's attitude is that Americans have to come back to God

to defeat this satanic conspiracy. Where religion prevails, Illuminism cannot make disciples, a French directory, cannot govern a nation, cannot be made slaves, nor villains, nor atheists, nor beasts. He reminded his readers that if this dangerous society succeeded in its plans, the children of evangelicals would be forced to read the work of deists or become kuncubines of a society that treated chastity is a prejudice, adultery is a virtue,

and marriage is a farce. Yeah, it's just all the same. Yeah, specifically that the religious freedom is to not let their children read stuff. That is the religious freedom that they need. I mean, it's interesting because it gets framed a lot as like, look at how crazy the GOP has gone. But the only thing religious freedom has ever meant in the context of the United States of America is the freedom to stop your children from learning things. This is

the only supportable conclusion by the actual evidence. That is what people who talk about religious freedom primarily mean in a political sense in this country. I want the freedom to stop my kid from encountering ideas other than what I believe. Yeah, totally just cool. Anyway, homeschooling is good.

So the mania over the Illuminati spread as far as the former President of the United States, George Washington, who stated that he was satisfied that the Illuminati had in fact spread to the United States in an attempt to destroy it. Abigail Adams recommended Robinson's book, which was basically

an unhinged conspiratorial screed to all of her friends. America's founding fathers and mothers bought into the Illuminati conspiracy theories so hard that some scholars argue had helped set a tone for the new nation that has remained with it

ever since. In his infamous essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics, which is probably the single most important piece of reading anyone can read in order to understand the American right wing in a meaningful way, Richard Hofstadter describes how the anti Illuminati conspiracy hysteria of the seventeen nineties merged with a broader anti Masonic movement in the eighteen

twenties and thirties. At first, this movement may seem to be no more than an extension or repetition of the anti Masonic theme sounded in the outcry against the Bavarian Illuminati. But whereas the panic of the seventeen nineties was confined mainly to New England and linked to an ultra conservative point of view, the later anti Masonic movement affected many parts of the Northern United States and was intimately linked

with popular democracy and rule egalitarianism. Although anti Masonry happened to be anti Jacksonian, Jackson was a Mason, it manifested the same animus against the closure of opportunity for the common man and against aristocratic institutions that one's finds in the Jacksonian crusade against the Bank of the United States. The anti Masonic movement was a product not merely of natural enthusiasm, but also of the vicissitudes of party politics.

It was joined and used by a great many men who did not fully share its original anti Masonic feelings. It attracted the support of several reputable statesmen who had only mild sympathy with its fundamental bias, but who as politicians, could not afford to ignore it. Now, what does that sound like? I mean, it's it's just all of it.

The thing I was thinking of when you're reading that is just how much of the current stuff we're dealing with now will be viewed in this same way in like two hundred years, Like all the stuff around like like like drag shows and COVID and all, like all this type of thing is like that's it's like, this will be viewed in this same weird, like weird like conspiratorial legs in the future as there's like you know, group groups of Antifa defending these drug shows and there's

people in the government talking about this organized efforts to blah blah blah blah blah. It's like it's it's it's all. It's all the same style of conspiracism that just it's it's it's it's it's always interesting to think that you're like that you actually are like living through history and no what what what what you're experiencing now will be reminisced on the same way we reminisce on these weird like these weird antium anti Mason movements and like the

early eighteen hundreds. Yeah, optimism about the continuation of society. I think the future at some point, the future version of a podcaster, which will probably like be a guy sitting around a barrel fire in the ruins of Chicago, will tell all of this story, but with like an extra couple of chapters of good stuff. Margaret, how do you what's the best way to start a barrel fire? Is it lots of gasoline? I mean, that's the fastest

way to start. For the fastest way to start almost two fire, is you take you take the mystery gas can, because there's always a mystery gas can, Yeah, the one that's been there for a few years past what you want to try putting in your car. Yeah. And it's also like you're not you don't remember. If it's diesel, you don't remember, If it's a gas you don't remember. If you added some oil to it. It might have been the one that you did like one to five.

Maybe where you live floods a lot, and there might have been like water might have gotten into it and you're not sure. Yeah, the untrustworthy gas can. The untrustworthy gas can is how you start a barrel fire. In my experience, that is the best way to start a barrel fire. That's why you got to rotate out your your good and bad fucking fuel cans. Yeah, well label them. No, no, no, that's never going to happen. I don't know. I'm like eighty percent good at tasting the difference between diesel and

regular fuel. Um, see the people whom you know, the there was that campaign you can't drink oil or yeah, like so then all the yeah, well that was the I mean kind of reasonably in some ways the right way. People would go on YouTube and then drink motor oil, like clean motor oil, not use motor oil, and be like, look, it's it's kind of neutral. It's so funny. I think that we should have just gone harder with that and like basically tried to do like the gallon of milk challenge,

but with I don't know, like diesel fuel. Just see what we can get them to do. Yeah, We're never the libs need to accept that we are never going to argue our way out of this. You cannot convince people of anything like about the irrationality of any of these movements, because they are based in irrationality. But we could probably get them to drink diesel fuel if we all work hard at it, and that would be really funny. This is what I'm going to read into the transcript.

The bard who has this as a transcript to read around the barrel fire, got it from court transcripts. Yeah, thank you. After the entire state of Florida dies in a diesel accident, a freak diesel drinking accident, the remnants of Florida of the cool zone media, well, thank you for being a part of passing off this arcane knowledge to the to the future generation. You're all in a secret society. Tell anyone who asked that this podcast is

just about you know, Hitler or whatever. That'll that'll get him, No, tell him it's true crime. Tell him. Tell him some broad got murdered and we're gonna like spend thirty hours talking about it. Anyway. The broad who got murdered was civil democracy. Yeah, Margaret got anything to plug? Yeah, I have a podcast. I don't know if if you're listening, if you like podcasts or not, but if you do, maybe you like history podcasts, and if you do, I've got a podcast for you. It's called Cool People Who

Did Cool Stuff. It's available on Cool Oh yeah, yes, Schools on Media is still exists and has not been sued into oblivion by the remnants of Florida until we go down taking out Florida like gandal fighting the bowl rog Yeah, just falling into a bit together. Okay. As someone who lives in West Virginia, I have to be a little bit careful when you blanketly make fun of people of a state. But that said, look, man, I grew up in Texas. If there's one thing that entitles

me to do, it's make fun of Florida. Yeah, okay, fair enough. And then also, if you want to make fun of a bunch of other people, you can read my book Escape from Insul Island, which is about making fun of insalls and then feeling sort of like trolls remorse halfway through writing it and actually start talking about what's wrong with the prison industrial complex. Um. And that is available from Tangled Wilderness dot org. You can get

it wherever you get books. Probably I don't know, hell yeah, hell yeah, Well be strange and a Tangled wilderness and will continue to be normal. You're in not a tangled wilderness. Do you want to ask Garrison if they have anything they'd like to plug? Or is wow, just clear gar Garrison is so secretive about what they do. Would they would they want people to know? Would they want to Why do you let them speak for themselves? I can't anyways, I can't believe. I can't believe I'm facing this type

of discrimination. No, this is you're trying You're trying to silence my uh my, my enlightened knowledge. But no, um, if you want to hear about a collection of people who the Georgia government, that is the state of the State of Georgia alleges is a is a secret is a secret coalition of of of organized people who are

who are who are fighting against the government. You can listen to my recent series on the Defend the Alant of Force movement and the different types of state repression that they are facing using very similar kind of conspiratorial, you know, group association type language to try to hurt the people that are that are actually trying to stop a force from being cut down. So that a batch of four episodes just came out on it could happen here. That is most of what I've been doing the past month.

Oh so go do that. Check out those episodes, which should be out by the time this airs. Will certainly be out by the time this airs. Um and and go again. I really can't advise you enough. Go weld galvanized steel without wearing a respirator. It will reveal to you hidden truths from the sea masters of the world. That's that's They're hidden in galvanized steel. It's like a genie's bottle. You got to break it open. See, you can fuck a genie, like that new Frank Miller movie,

which was pretty fucking dope in my opinion. Wait, what's the movie where they fuck a genie? Oh, it's like it's like three thousand years of Solitude or something like that, A thousand I forget the exact title. Something of Solitude, but it's like it's Tilda Swinton fucking an indus Alba genie. It's pretty dope. All right, I think you should. You should tell people that, not specifically, the Liberals don't want Biden is coming for your right to to stout respirator.

Oh yeah, that too. Yeah, Joe Biden just said during the State of the Union, the late part in it that you didn't hear that he wants Americans to stop Weldon galvanized steel without respirators. First they came, and now they come for our A real alpha male m doesn't word a respiratored. Oh god, it don't let that be the last word of the podcast. It Cocked behind the

Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media. For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.