They included important people in Bavarian public life, such as Baron Adolph von Knigge. Over the following years, Weishaupt’s secret order grew considerably in size and diversity, possibly numbering 600 members by 1782. “Minerval” referred to the Roman goddess of wisdom, Minerva, reflecting the order’s aim to spread true knowledge, or illumination, about how society, and the state, might be reshaped. In the beginning, the order’s membership had three levels: novices, minervals, and illuminated minervals. All future candidates for admission required the members’ consent, a strong reputation with well-established familial and social connections, and wealth. There they established the rules that were to govern the order. Bathed in torchlight, there were five men. On the night of May 1, 1776, the first Illuminati met to found the order in a forest near Ingolstadt. His thinking, he wrote, offered freedom “from all religious prejudices cultivates the social virtues and animates them by a great, a feasible, and speedy prospect of universal happiness.” To achieve this, it was necessary to create “a state of liberty and moral equality, freed from the obstacles which subordination, rank, and riches, continually throw in our way.” Weishaupt was not, he said, against religion itself, but rather the way in which it was practiced and imposed. Disillusioned with many of the Freemasons’ ideas, however, he became absorbed in books dealing with such esoteric themes as the Mysteries of the Seven Sages of Memphis and the Kabbala, and decided to found a new secret society of his own. Weishaupt initially thought of joining a lodge. Weishaupt was not the only one who believed that the monarchy and the church were repressing freedom of thought.Ĭonvinced that religious ideas were no longer an adequate belief system to govern modern societies, he decided to find another form of “illumination,” a set of ideas and practices that could be applied to radically change the way European states were run.įreemasonry was steadily expanding throughout Europe in this period, offering attractive alternatives to freethinkers.
Bavaria at that time was deeply conservative and Catholic. As a boy he was an avid reader, consuming books by the latest French Enlightenment philosophers in his uncle’s library. Upon initiation as a minerval, he promised to sacrifice all personal interests to those of the society.Ī closer look at his upbringing, however, reveals that Weishaupt always had a restless mind. A novice preparing to pass to the higher level of minerval, for example, had to present a detailed report on the titles of the books he owned, the identity of his enemies, and the weak points of his character. Secret papers seized by the Bavarian authorities revealed fascinating details about the rituals of the Illuminati.
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