The Final Fate of the Masonic Order

...wise! I wish even less to recall to your memory the various occurrences that the Order Referring to the Freemasons. has experienced, especially in the last thirty years; for these are, in part, even publicly and quite accurately known. I proceed rather to the main point, and wish to develop for you the actual and more immediate causes of our present sad fate.

With the prolific expansion of our Order—which was likely hardly the intention of its first founders—it had already for several years been torn into different factions or systems original: "Partheyen oder Systeme" — in 18th-century Freemasonry, "systems" referred to different organizational branches and ritual styles, such as the Strict Observance, which often vied for legitimacy and control. that hated and persecuted one another. Disunity in any society usually brings destruction in its wake, and even those who did not fear that had to look forward to a great change. This apprehension was justified by the outcome; but from an unexpected quarter. Within the Order, we were still occupied with the removal of abuses and the unification of the factions, when in the spring of the year 1776 (a date that will remain forever remarkable in the annals of humanity) a society arose in Ingolstadt which, in its first origin, was a student order original: "Studentenorden" — these were fraternal groups at German universities that imitated Masonic structures, often becoming hotbeds for radical political or philosophical ideas., several of which had previously been hatched at academies as imitations of our Order. The members of this club called themselves Illuminati. Their founder was Adam Weishaupt, Professor in Ingolstadt; as a scholar, as a writer, as a man of talents, at that time...