[paragraph continues] Let then the laughers laugh and the scoffers scoff. He that observes and compares what Nature has done with what she does at present, will soon see, that in spite of all our intrigues she tends invariably toward her object. Her proceedings are imperceptible to him who reflects but little; they are visible only to the sage whose mind’s eye penetrates even to the womb of time.—From the summit of the mount he discovers in the horizon that distant country, the very existence of which is not surmised by the servile multitude of the plain.”
The principal means which Weishaupt. offers to his adepts for the conquest of this land of promise, this soil of independence, are, to diminish the wants of the people, and to enlighten their minds. Hearken to his lessons, you who, heretofore protected by your laws, peaceably exercised an honourable and lucrative profession, and you who, once rivals of the flourishing commerce of Great Britain on the immensity of the ocean, are now but the sorrowful and dejected coasters of the Texel, imprudent disciples of a disorganizing Sect.—Learn, that it is in the secret hatred sworn against you by the Sect in its mysteries that you are to seek the destruction of Lyons, the pillage of Bourdeaux, the ruin of Nantes and Marseilles, the fate, in short, of so many other towns flourishing in commerce, even the fate of Amsterdam itself; and then let your aching eye glance on your trees of Equality and Liberty. At the very time when you thought that you were seconding the views of the Sect against the Nobles, Priests, and Monarchs, only to reinstate the people in their rights of Equality and Liberty, the Sect was aiming its blows at you as the grand artificers of Despotism. At that very period your profession was already proscribed by the mysteries, as that which of all others most surely tended to retain the people in slavery; the Illuminizing Jacobin was teaching his adepts, that “he who wishes to subject nations to his yoke, need but to create wants which he alone can satisfy.—Erect the mercantile tribe (die kaufmanschaft) into an hierarchical body; that is to say, confer on it some rank or some authority in the government, and you will have created the most formidable, the most despotic of all powers. You will see it giving laws to the universe, and on it alone will rest the independence of one part of the world and the slavery of the other. For that man dictates the law who has it in his power to create or foresee, to stifle, weaken, or satisfy want. And who are better enabled to do this than merchants?” Thus we see that those men who were such ardent supporters of Jacobinism in our commercial towns, with a view to partake of the government, are precisely those whose profession the profound Jacobin chiefly detests in every form of government. May the elucidation of this mystery inspire the industrious inhabitants of hospitable Britain with new zeal for their laws! The discovery of such a snare is of too great importance to their safety, to allow me to conceal it from them.
In the next place the Hierophant proceeds from the art of diminishing wants in order to operate the independence of nations, to the duty of diffusing what he calls light. “He on the contrary (those are his words) “who wishes to render mankind free, teaches them how to refrain from the acquisition of
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things which they cannot afford: he enlightens them, he infuses into them boldness and inflexible manners. He that teaches them sobriety, temperance, and œconomy, is more dangerous to the throne than the man who openly preaches regicide.—If you cannot diffuse at the same instant this degree of light among all men, at least begin by enlightening yourself, and by rendering yourself better. Serve, assist, and mutually support each other; augment our numbers; render yourselves at least independent, and leave to time and posterity the care of doing the rest. When your numbers shall be augmented to a certain degree, when you shall have acquired strength by your union, hesitate no longer, but begin to render yourself powerful and formidable to the wicked (that is to say to all who will resist their plans); the very circumstance of your being sufficiently numerous to talk of force, and that you really do talk of it, that circumstance alone makes the prophane and wicked tremble—That they may not be overpowered by numbers, many will become good (like you) of themselves, and will join your party.—You will soon acquire sufficient force to bind the hands of your opponents, to subjugate them and to stifle wickedness in the embryo.” That is to say, as it may be understood in future, you will soon be able to stifle every principle of law, of government, of civil or political society, whose very institution in the eyes of an Illuminee is the germ of all the vices and misfortunes of human nature. “The mode of diffusing universal light, is not to proclaim it at once to the whole world, but to begin with yourself; then turn toward your next neighbour; you two can enlighten a third and fourth; let these in the same manner extend and multiply the number of the children of light, until numbers and force shall throw power into our hands.” 10
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
