The Final Fate of the Masonic Order

...little or rather not known at all. How he came upon the invention of a new order—whether he intended thereby merely to gain prestige and a following among the students, or whether he wanted to set up a light corps original: "leichtes Corps" — a military term for a mobile, specialized unit; here used metaphorically to describe a loyal group of supporters. against the ex-Jesuits The Jesuit Order had been suppressed by the Pope in 1773; many former members remained influential in education and were bitter rivals of the Enlightenment-era thinkers like Weishaupt. with whom he lived in a feud—that is not quite clear.

You might ask, perhaps, if this new order also had secrets? If its founder wanted to pique curiosity and bind the initiates to his invention, he had to at least feign secrets for that reason alone. However, the Weishauptian new creation really did have secrets; yet they were neither scientific nor historical; they were secrets of a special kind. They were not, for instance, secrets borrowed from our Order Referring to Freemasonry.: for until the year 1779, Weishaupt was entirely unknown to it—and oh! if only he had always remained so. They were mysteries invented by himself, which one of the most malicious demons of Pandemonium In 18th-century literature, this refers to the capital of Hell; the author is using highly dramatic, religious imagery to condemn Weishaupt's ideas. had whispered to him, in order to form the monster that carries the name Mystery on its forehead A biblical allusion to the Whore of Babylon in Revelation 17:5, often used in political polemics to denote a hidden, corrupting power.; a secret that fills the soul of every honest person with disgust and horror, and deserves to be covered in eternal darkness. For nothing less than a complete overthrow original: "Umwälzung" — can also be translated as revolution. of religion and state was the intent of this monstrous fraternity. Hear what Weishaupt wrote as early as the year 1778 to Court Councilor von Zwackh Franz Xaver von Zwack (1755–1843), one of the most prominent early members of the Illuminati., one of his first disciples:

You will (by means of the Order) gradually