Illuminati

Illuminati (Lat. 'the enlightened'), a name assumed by or conferred upon various mystics professing to have special knowledge of God and things divine. The sects which may be included under the title are the Alombrados, who originated in Spain about 1520, and were finally crushed by the Inquisition; the Guérinets in France, who flourished from 1623 to 1635; another sect which arose in the south of France about 1722, and perished in the storms of the Revolution; an association of mystics in Belgium, in the later half of the 18th century. But the name is more particularly given to the Order of the Illuminati, founded at Ingolstadt on May 1, 1776, which soon spread over almost all the Catholic parts of Germany. Its founder, Adam Weishaupt (1748–1830), professor of Canon Law at Ingolstadt, at first called it the Order of the Perfectibilists. Filled with detestation of Jesuitism, and impatient of the restraints which were at that time imposed on the freedom of human thought in Catholic Germany, especially in Bavaria, Weishaupt set himself to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny, by founding an association which should be a luminous centre for the promotion of rational and religious enlightenment. Religious dogmas and forms of worship were rejected; his religious system was a form of deism. But the society prosecuted political aims as well, in that the members of the highest of the orders into which it was divided were pledged to the furtherance of Republican opinions. Implicit obedience to the chiefs of the association was one of the first laws of its constitution. The accession of Baron von Knigge to the new order, and the support which it received from the Freemasons, led to its rapid extension; about 1780 it counted more than 2000 adherents, mostly men of rank and influence. It was regarded with favour by Goethe, Herder, Nicolai, Ernest II. of Gotha, and Karl August of Weimar. Weishaupt and Knigge quarrelled in 1784. The order began to be openly denounced as dangerous, in 1784 and 1785 edicts were issued by the Elector of Bavaria for its suppression, and Weishaupt was degraded and banished. See his Geschichte der Verfolgung der Illuminaten (1787) and Kurze Rechtfertigung meiner Absichten (1787). — Illuminism, the system of the French illuminati, is sometimes used as a synonym for Freemasonry and unbelief, from a Catholic point of view.