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Reviewing the historical context, some say the Illuminati and the Jesuits were one and the same.  Others say they were opponents, each with their own plan to dominate the world.

There are various theories about numerous secret societies.  Some are better supported by source materials than others.  Until those societies give up their secrets the public at large is left to theorise based on the best information available. 

In this article, we aren’t attempting to promote any particular theory but rather summarising two perspectives, of possibly many, relating to a time in history when the Illuminati began.  A time when the Illuminati were inextricably linked with Freemasons, Rosicrucians and Jesuits whatever the perspective.

The two sources we are using are articles, both written by authors of books, which have different perspectives on the relationship between the Illuminati and Jesuits during the 18^th century:

1. An Introduction to the Jesuit Order of Rome. A 2013 article published by Quantum Prophecies and written by Benjamin Nehemiah, author of ‘Babylon Resurrected’.
2. Illuminati Conspiracy Part Two: Sniffing out Jesuits. A 2015 article published by Conspiracy Archive and written by Terry Melanson, author of ‘Perfectibilists: The 18th Century Bavarian Order of the Illuminati’.

Introduction to the Four Orders

Britannica describes that according to anonymously published books, Christian Rosenkreuz founded the Rosicrucian order, also known as the Golden and Rosy Cross, in Germany in 1403.

The Society of Jesus of the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Ignatius of Loyola, a Spanish soldier, in 1534. Another name for the Society is the Jesuit Order and its members are called Jesuits. The Society introduced several innovations in the form of the religious life. Among these was a highly centralised form of authority with life tenure for the head of the Order and probation lasting many years before final vows.  Particular emphasis was laid upon the virtue of obedience, including special obedience to the pope. It quickly assumed a prominent role in the Counter-Reformation defence and revival of Catholicism.

Freemasonry as we know it today was founded in 1717 when four London lodges merged to form England’s first Grand Lodge. Freemasonry quickly spread across Europe and to the American colonies.

The Illuminati was founded by Adam Weishaupt in Bavaria, now in Germany, on 1 May 1776. Weishaupt sought to cast aside organised religion in favour of a new form of “illumination” through reason.  He drew upon ideas expressed by the Jesuits, the Mysteries of the Seven Sages of Memphis, the Kabbalah and the Freemasons. He recruited heavily from the latter group, infiltrating masonic lodges in his quest to recruit some of the wealthiest and most influential men in Europe. Members of the Bavarian Illuminati were referred to as “Perfectibilists.”

An Introduction to the Jesuit Order of Rome

“[Wherever] a totalitarian movement erupts, whether Communist or Nazi [Fascist], a Jesuit can be found in the role of ‘adviser’ or leader; in Cuba [it was] [Jesuit-trained] Castro’s ‘Father’ Armando Llorente…” – American physician and historian Emanuel M. Josephson

Jesuit Order All Roads Lead to the Black Pope, The MIllenium Report, 11 August 2016

In its article, Quantum Prophecies detailed a history of the Jesuits: “The first part of our journey takes us back to one of the most significant events of the last millennium” – the Protestant Reformation during the 16^th century.

The Protestant Reformation led England, Germany and various other European countries to break away from Roman Catholic rule. The Reformation was initiated by Christians who exposed a conspiracy within the Roman Catholic Church.

To pre-empt the Protestant Reformation a Counter-Reformation was initiated by the Catholic Church. Led by General Ignatius of Loyola, the Jesuits devised plans for political subversion and set out to suppress and infiltrate the Protestant movement.

The main objective of the Jesuit Order was to gain world domination by countering the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and to subdue the Protestant Reformation. Following the heretical Reformation in England, the Jesuits revived Freemasonry in 1717 in order to infiltrate Protestantism and restore the Catholic House of Stuart to the throne.

According to 32nd Degree Freemason, William Peterson: 25 degrees of the Scottish Rite were written in the College of Jesuits of Clermont, in Paris in 1754 – thus high-level Freemasonry has always been a tool of the Jesuits.

(Please note: The Counter-Reformation has actually continued until the 21st century – the Vatican continues to kill liberals and heretics to this very day). The Jesuits are the militia and foot soldiers for Rome.

An Introduction to the Jesuit Order of Rome, Quantum Prophecies, 24 October 2013

As a practitioner of mysticism and heretical Christianity, Ignatius of Loyola was a member of Los Alumbrados, the 15th-century Spanish equivalent of the Illuminati. Quantum Prophecies went on to note that “it was the Jesuit, Adam Weishaupt, who founded the Bavarian Illuminati in 1776.”  As you will read in the next section of our article, Conspiracy Archive refutes that Weishaupt was a Jesuit.

Considering what other researchers claim about who was the real power behind the Jesuits during this time, Quantum Prophecies made an interesting observation:

At present, I don’t believe the founding of the Jesuit order was a Jewish ploy. Many positions of corporate power are undoubtedly held by Jews (…such as the Rothschilds, please click here for my article on the Rothschilds and their subservience to the Holy See), however, I agree with author Eric Phelps who argues that these Jews are merely the Pope’s “court-Jews”, acting as a buffer zone to hide the true families of power (such as the Orsinis, Breakspears, Aldobrandinis, Farneses and Somaglias).

An Introduction to the Jesuit Order of Rome, Quantum Prophecies, 24 October 2013

Ignatius of Loyola became the first Jesuit Superior General, also known as the “Father General,” and he sent his agents far and wide to set up schools, colleges, and seminaries. According to Grand Designs Exposed, at the time of their article which seems to be in 2013, the Jesuits had some 25,000 members in 112 countries and there were 28 Jesuit Universities and 50 Jesuit High Schools in America.

Jesuits work in many roles in parish and retreat ministry, in high schools and colleges, as lawyers, doctors, scientists and astronomers, psychologists and counsellors, writers and journalists, theologians and philosophers and in many places and with many different peoples in cities, rural areas, in the missions of South America, Africa, and elsewhere. The Jesuits are renowned the world over for excellence in education … They are the social engineers for the New World Order – if you are going to control public opinion you have to control education.

Introducing the Jesuit foot soldiers of the NOW, Grand Design Exposed

Illuminati Conspiracy: Sniffing out Jesuits

By analysing an article published by Religious Counterfeits, which is no longer available on the internet, Conspiracy Archive published an article to refute theories that claimed:

1. that Adam Weishaupt was a Jesuit – not just Jesuit-trained, but a Jesuit priest; and
2. that the Illuminati, therefore, are synonymous with the Jesuits and, in fact, the two are the same.

Some claim the founder of the Jesuit Order, Ignatius of Loyola classed himself as a member of the Illuminati.  Los Alumbrados literally means Illuminati but Loyola didn’t, as is dishonestly claimed, class “himself as a member,” Conspiracy Archive noted. “He was questioned on a couple of occasions by the Inquisition on exactly this point, and each time he vehemently refuted the charges. I don’t believe him, myself. But I would be lying if I claimed Loyola had ‘classed himself a member’.”

These Alumbrados have no relation whatsoever to the Illuminatenorden of the 18th Century. The former were mystically inclined ascetics, while the latter was a child, through and through, of the rationalist philosophes of the Enlightenment and the “Aufklärung” popularphilosophen in German-speaking lands.

Illuminati Conspiracy Part Two: Sniffing out Jesuits, Conspiracy Archive, 8 February 2015

Another claim is that Weishaupt was a Jesuit Priest who was involved in “illumination” or witchcraft.  This is not true according to Conspiracy Archive. “Weishaupt was indeed taught by the Jesuits, though he himself wasn’t one of them.  Many prominent thinkers – such as Voltaire, Descartes, and Diderot – were trained by Jesuits.”

Weishaupt was only educated by the Jesuits, had never been one himself, and was in fact pathologically hostile toward the Jesuits or Jesuitism – anything to do with monasticism, religious absolutism, or “superstitious folly” and obscurantism.  Weishaupt was an enemy of the Jesuits, as was the whole of the Illuminati itself. 

The feeling of hostility was mutual. So much so, that the real persecuting hand behind the suppression of the Illuminati in Bavaria descended from the fanatic “ex”-Jesuit and court confessor, Ignaz Franck. Franck also happened to be the head of the Munich Circle of the Golden and Rosy Cross (Gold- und Rosenkreuzer) – thus the rumours of a joint Rosicrucian-Jesuit plot to destroy the Illuminati doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

The Rosicrucians at that time had adhered to a zealous type of mystical conservatism. Hence the basic dialectic of the Enlightenment was this: Philosophes + Freemasonry + Illuminati (opposing) Jesuits + the Church + Rosicrucians.

Illuminati Conspiracy Part Two: Sniffing out Jesuits, Conspiracy Archive, 8 February 2015

Additionally, Weishaupt didn’t publish “a plan to help the Jesuits take over the World,” as some claim.  Nesta Webster stated in her book, first published in 1924, that the Jesuits were the Illuminati’s most formidable opponents:

… far from abetting the Illuminati, the Jesuits were their most formidable opponents, the only body of men sufficiently learned, astute, and well-organised to outwit the schemes of Weishaupt. In suppressing the Jesuits it is possible that the Old Régime removed the only barrier capable of resisting the tide of revolution.

Weishaupt indeed, as we know, detested the Jesuits, and took from them only certain methods of discipline, of ensuring obedience or of acquiring influence over the minds of his disciples; his aims were entirely different.

Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, Nesta Webster, pg. 106

The Illuminati did have a plan but it didn’t include the Jesuits:

Weishaupt had a plan all right, but it was for the Illuminati (after having vanquished the Jesuits completely and utterly) to be the sole arbitrator over the direction of the entire Enlightenment: an anarchistic, Rousseauian-primitivist, Archimedean lever for social reorganisation. Weishaupt was a narcissistic megalomaniac, and this was the main reason why his second in command, Baron von Knigge, had finally quit in a huff.

Illuminati Conspiracy Part Two: Sniffing out Jesuits, Conspiracy Archive, 8 February 2015

The enmity and the Illuminati’s plan are summed up in a couple of passages from John Robison’s book:

… the emancipation of his young hearers from the terrors of superstition. I suppose also that this was the more agreeable to him, as it procured him the triumph over the Jesuits, with whom he had long struggled for the direction of the university [of Ingolstadt].

This was in 1777. Weishaupt had long been scheming the establishment of an Association or Order, which, in time, should govern the world. In his first fervour and high expectations, he hinted to several Ex-Jesuits the probability of their recovering, under a new name, the influence which they formerly possessed, and of being again of great service to society, by directing the education of youth of distinction, now emancipated from all civil and religious prejudices. He prevailed on some to join him, but they all retracted but two. After this disappointment Weishaupt became the implacable enemy of the Jesuits; and his sanguine temper made him frequently lay himself open to their piercing eye, and drew on him their keenest resentment, and at last made him the victim of their enmity.

Proofs of a Conspiracy (1797), John Robison, pg. 103

Weishaupt’s personal war with the Jesuit Order had begun at Ingolstadt University. But in 1778, Weishaupt put one of the Illuminati’s strategies into motion: the Jesuits must be discredited, exposed, hunted and driven out.  He began by reprinting, at the Illuminati’s expense, Alphonsus de Vargas’ anti-Jesuit ‘Stratagems and Political Sophisms of the Jesuits’.

He wrote to one of the five original members of the Illuminati: “We have … in Munich our own printer. It is from there that you’ll soon receive, printed at our expense, the Relatio de strategmatis et sophismatis Polchis S. I. by Alphonsus de Vargas” – ‘A Report to the Christian Kings and Princes on the Stratagems and Political Sophisms of the Jesuits For World Domination’. Or, as Juan Antonio Llorente translated its title:

An Exposition made by Alphonsa de Vargas to the Christian Kings and Princes, of the Stratagems and political Artifices which the Members of the Society of Jesus employ to establish a universal Monarchy in their favour, a Work which proves the deceit of the Jesuits towards the Kings and Nations who have received them favourably; their Perfidy and Disobedience, even to the Pope, and the immoderate Desire of Innovation which they have always shewn in Matters of Religion.

The History of the Inquisition of Spain from the Time of its Establishment to the Reign of Ferdinand VII, Juan Antonio Llorente, 1826, pg. 280

Conspiracy Archive’s article detailed some of the propaganda tactics subsequently employed by three Illuminati members and noted: “This article was not meant to be exhaustive … The roll-call of ‘Jesuit hunters’ within the Illuminati would be long indeed, if I were to list and recount the actions of them all.” The article concluded:

If you’re searching for secret Jesuitical influence during the 18th Century, it’s not that difficult to find. My feeling is that some of the concerns about Templar-masonry do seem warranted. The sudden appearance of Templar and Scottish-Jacobite-Stuart allegiance among Masonic aristocrats during the 1740s and 50s has the smell of a phenomenon from without; and the Jesuits and the Vatican – it is pretty obvious – would have had the most to gain from the introduction of such beliefs.

That the Jesuits had infiltrated the Golden and Rosy Cross, there is no doubt. The Jesuit court confessor to the Bavarian Elector Karl Theodor, the hated and detested Ignaz Franck, as mentioned above, was the head of the Munich Rosicrucian Circle. The alliance between the Rosicrucians and the Jesuits during the 18th Century is not difficult to spot once you dig a bit under the surface; and I can’t help but marvel at how incredibly ironic that is. For when the original Rosicrucian manifestos appeared on the scene in 1614, a prominent theme was denunciation of the Jesuits. According to the late Frances Yates, “the illuminated wisdom of the Fama … makes strongly anti-Jesuit remarks … [and] is setting forth an alternative to the Jesuit Order.” The general “intention is clear,” she says, an “intention of associating the first Rosicrucian manifesto with anti-Jesuit propaganda” (The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, Routledge Classics, 2004, p. 59).

Illuminati Conspiracy Part Two: Sniffing out Jesuits, Conspiracy Archive, 8 February 2015

Featured image: St. Ignatius of Loyola: Madman or Militant Monk? (left) and Illuminating Facts About The Illuminati (right)