Speaker 1: Oh we're back. It's behind the bastards, Sophie. I'm going
Speaker 1: to do that many more times. Um. You know, I
Speaker 1: I think the audience likes that. Just like they like
Speaker 1: my flawless Boston accent. They also like updates from my life,
Speaker 1: so I want to let them know. I finished decorating
Speaker 1: my living room. You know, ever since I got my house,
Speaker 1: I've been wondering what to do now that I have
Speaker 1: a TV with this this huge screen in the middle
Speaker 1: of my life. Because it didn't feel right for it
Speaker 1: to only exist for TV. I wanted it to be
Speaker 1: kind of a perpetual art project. So I found an
Speaker 1: on the internet archive a complete repository of every episode
Speaker 1: of Walker Texas Ranger, and I have it set up
Speaker 1: so that they're just always playing on my television, even
Speaker 1: when it's off. So anytime I turn on my TV,
Speaker 1: there's just automatically Walker Texas Ranger happening, just a low
Speaker 1: res It looks like TV's from the nineties used to look,
Speaker 1: and it's it's really done. Wonders for my mental health,
Speaker 1: just that it's a little health hack for all of
Speaker 1: you people. I don't know if wonders is the right word.
Speaker 1: It has had an impact on your mental health. It
Speaker 1: sure has had an impact. I've learned how to do
Speaker 1: roundhouse kicks, which I've I've I've come to support as
Speaker 1: like the primary method by which society should be organized.
Speaker 1: I think that's my illuminati. It's all going to be
Speaker 1: roundhouse kick based. I mean, honestly, be an imbrovement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty good. Um, some of the most racist
Speaker 1: things I've ever seen. Um, there's there's an episode that's
Speaker 1: like set in the past when they're all cowboys and
Speaker 1: like Walker's partner in the TV show is like in
Speaker 1: the normal show is like a black Texas ranger And
Speaker 1: in the episode in the past, he's a former slave
Speaker 1: who was taught how to be a doctor by his master.
Speaker 1: And when he tells the Mormon missionaries they're hanging out
Speaker 1: with it he used to be a slave, They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's so terrible, and he's like, no, it was fine.
Speaker 1: It is wild. The things you used to get away
Speaker 1: with on nineties Steefee, Yeah, good stuff, good stuff. Margaret
Speaker 1: kill Joyce, have you ever created a secret society? God
Speaker 1: damn it, you were just telling us about this, so
Speaker 1: I know, yeah, I know. Okay, so I like ten
Speaker 1: years ago backed you up, Magpie, you have obligation to
Speaker 1: tell this story. No, no, it's it's fine. The worst
Speaker 1: the consequences of starting secret society have already happened, which
Speaker 1: is that we started a secret society. We've We've put
Speaker 1: out a pamphlet we claimed to have been around for
Speaker 1: several thousand years. We distributed it at a few places. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and that's why I was like laughing so hard. It's
Speaker 1: like I was like, what an asshole? Why would you
Speaker 1: do that? And in the back it had this, you know,
Speaker 1: if you would like more information, please write to the
Speaker 1: following physical address, because we decided that that was like
Speaker 1: spookier than an email address, you know. Um. And then
Speaker 1: within six months, the house that was that the address
Speaker 1: burned down. Oh do you know why? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I have no idea why the house burned down. Okay, curious,
Speaker 1: huh law interesting? Yeah, should should have bought a po
Speaker 1: box huh yeah. Yeah, it was a it was an
Speaker 1: amateur mistake. Yeah. That's why people cannot currently send us anything.
Speaker 1: As a fan post on the subreddit that their package
Speaker 1: got sent back, it's because we need to get a
Speaker 1: po box set up, but that would this is leaving
Speaker 1: my house. This is Secret Society advice one oh one,
Speaker 1: get a box, or use the address of an enemy,
Speaker 1: maybe someone who you think is like at risk of
Speaker 1: losing their mind, and just have them suddenly receive hundreds
Speaker 1: of letters from strangers around the world. You think they're
Speaker 1: the center of a conspiracy. That's actually where the story
Speaker 1: will end in like three or four episodes. That so
Speaker 1: tracks very clearly. We're talking about the the Aluminati, which
Speaker 1: has just been formed by Adam Weishop, and he has
Speaker 1: decided the way to save the world is to lie
Speaker 1: to a bunch of rich people and make them think
Speaker 1: they're wizards so he can buy nice books. That is
Speaker 1: the center of the actual Illuminati conspiracy theory. So there
Speaker 1: is a conspiracy theory. It's just a lot funnier than
Speaker 1: I think most people tend to believe. So one of
Speaker 1: the things that's interesting to me is that kind of
Speaker 1: like as the organization changed over time, the main thing
Speaker 1: about it, because Adam goes through some ideological shifts himself.
Speaker 1: The main thing that's consistent about the Illuminati is that
Speaker 1: he's lying to nearly everyone in it, right, That's like
Speaker 1: the most, like the part of it that carries through
Speaker 1: the most. So he recruits a couple of dozen people successfully,
Speaker 1: but then kind of like stalls out and can't get
Speaker 1: more people. And he gets some advice that like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe if you join the Masons, you could like recruit
Speaker 1: people from within the Masons and that would allow us
Speaker 1: to like get some more blood in the organization. So
Speaker 1: he owns joins a Masonry organization, like a Masonic lodge
Speaker 1: in munich Um, and his plan there is he wants
Speaker 1: to like rise up high enough that he can get
Speaker 1: his own official lodge and started an ingolstat and then
Speaker 1: kind of move the Illuminati into this Masonic lodge that
Speaker 1: he creates and just have this Masonic lodge actually be
Speaker 1: the Illuminati. So he's basically trying to like incept a
Speaker 1: secret society within the Freemasons because it will help him recruit.
Speaker 1: I mean, so it's entry ism. It's like the yeah,
Speaker 1: the communist tendency of entryism. Like this sort of thing
Speaker 1: happens a lot with these like esoteric groups and these
Speaker 1: secret societies and orders like this. This this style of
Speaker 1: growing your own little weird cult is very consistent. Like
Speaker 1: this is this is a technique that gets used like
Speaker 1: even even even till today, but across a lot of
Speaker 1: the different kind of orgs that popped up that were
Speaker 1: like inspired by the Illuminati and by the Freemasons. This
Speaker 1: this thing happened a lot. This yes, this style nesting
Speaker 1: doll of conspiracy society exactly exactly like joining joining one
Speaker 1: group to like feed off their members and start your
Speaker 1: own branch off organization. And it's like it's very very consistent. Yeah, nothing,
Speaker 1: this says, this is a popular idea, Like there's only
Speaker 1: a tiny number of people are willing to do this.
Speaker 1: So we have to snipe each other. So we have
Speaker 1: to steal from another. We have to we have to
Speaker 1: like is it is it actually a magpie? That's that
Speaker 1: bird that like lives in the nest of another bird?
Speaker 1: We have to do that. Oh no, that's Isn't that
Speaker 1: the cuckoo? Is that the cuckoo? I'm not good at birds?
Speaker 1: Magpie steal ship. Welcome to Behind the Book to podcast
Speaker 1: where we get into where Robert where Robert lists the
Speaker 1: two facts about birds that he knows. Um so one
Speaker 1: of the it brings in this works really well and
Speaker 1: the fact that like he is now recruiting through a
Speaker 1: Masonic lodge for the Illuminati, and everyone knows who the
Speaker 1: Masons are. This brings in hundreds of new members, and
Speaker 1: one of these new members is a twenty eight year
Speaker 1: old diplomat from Hanover named a do Knig Knig. It's
Speaker 1: really weird, k n Igge. I'm just gonna pronounce it
Speaker 1: the way that that feels best to me. I don't care.
Speaker 1: So secret societies and fraternities had been the coolest organizations
Speaker 1: in Knnig's world when he was a little kid. Um,
Speaker 1: he is a secret society nerd, and so as a
Speaker 1: teen he's reading everything he can about these new fraternal
Speaker 1: organizations spreading around Europe. He describes himself as a child
Speaker 1: as stricken with our era's greatest disease, a yearning for
Speaker 1: secret connections and orders. As a little boy, he'd actually
Speaker 1: created his own secret society and invited his friends to join.
Speaker 1: They'd worn silver cross pendance and drawn up a list
Speaker 1: of by laws. I think I'm certain they excluded girls.
Speaker 1: Um it is. There's there's a very like Calvin and
Speaker 1: Hobbes aspect to this guy's childhood. Um, I hope they
Speaker 1: used a po box. Yeah, this child's house burned down
Speaker 1: after distributing its neighborhood in a lineage of secret mystics
Speaker 1: dating back to Anostic period. So Connig had maybe Connig
Speaker 1: was a Canostic. So Connig had joined his local Masonic
Speaker 1: lodge and risen as soon as he could, right, because
Speaker 1: he's big marn for this stuff, and he had meat
Speaker 1: pretty very quickly, as quickly as possible, rises to the
Speaker 1: highest rank within his lodge. And then he's like, oh, really,
Speaker 1: is that all there isn yeah, I think it's a
Speaker 1: conneit he is? He is cone, Yeah, And Connig is like,
Speaker 1: was that all there is? Because this is just like
Speaker 1: pronounce it but I really don't. Oh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that was part of part of my thinking on the
Speaker 1: matter too, But I think we should go with that bit. No,
Speaker 1: Conig is gonna be less problematic. So his first name
Speaker 1: huh yeah, we'll call Adolph. Yeah, that's a problem. There's
Speaker 1: no bad history with adults, so it's still such a
Speaker 1: common it. Really, it really is. This is all Stay good, Sophie.
Speaker 1: There's not a lot that's funny about Hitler, but it
Speaker 1: is kind of funny that he just torpedoed the German
Speaker 1: equivalent to like Bill just nuked it. Good stuff. Good stuff.
Speaker 1: Every now and then when you're reading about, like particularly
Speaker 1: like German Jewish communities pre Holocaust, you'll run into like
Speaker 1: a German Jewish Adolph and be like, oh man, what
Speaker 1: an unfortunate name for you to have? In like nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty one. Yeah, so yeah, as a little boy, Kennig
Speaker 1: is all into these secret societies and he joins his
Speaker 1: local Masonic lodge. He gets as high as he can,
Speaker 1: and then he's like, is this really just like a
Speaker 1: discount club for rich people? This is basically Costco with costumes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Adam gets very disappointed and he's hanging out in
Speaker 1: the lodge one day kind of bumming. Adam gets disappointed
Speaker 1: or so not Adam, m Adolph. It's disappointment Adolph, a
Speaker 1: little Adolf, and he's hanging around this lodge one day
Speaker 1: kind of bumming about the fact that the Masons are silly.
Speaker 1: And then one of these dudes, because by this point
Speaker 1: Adam Bishopped has sent agents of the Illuminati out as
Speaker 1: recruiters to other lodges, and one of these people walks
Speaker 1: up to Connig and is like, you seem like you're
Speaker 1: kind of bored with the Masons, and Cannig is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a little silly. And this guy's like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a real secret society that's hidden in the Masons
Speaker 1: that only a small number of people get to join,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, he makes his pitch, um and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: Connig is like, that's exactly my shit. And he goes
Speaker 1: to a bunch of his friends who are in the
Speaker 1: Masons and he tells them this guy really he says
Speaker 1: there's a secret society inside the Masons called the Illuminati,
Speaker 1: and I should join and his friends are like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, dude, it's probably bullshit, and boldly does not
Speaker 1: listen to his friends. Um why Shop sends him a
Speaker 1: letter later that year where he thanks Kennig for his interest,
Speaker 1: and he's like, you must be a super smart guy
Speaker 1: to have figured out that the Masons there's nothing there, right,
Speaker 1: You're so smart. We think you're ready for our little organization.
Speaker 1: So this is like the secret truth. What's really funny, suckers, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: we go to the group of suckers to get suckers.
Speaker 1: What's gonna be really funny is when you learn why
Speaker 1: we know all this so Cannig ends up promising or
Speaker 1: Adam ends up getting Canig to join the Illuminati, in
Speaker 1: part because he promises to fund Kenig's experiments in alchemy,
Speaker 1: because he wants the guy to act as a recruiter.
Speaker 1: Cannig is very charismatic, he's very connected. He's a diplomat,
Speaker 1: so he's good at talking to people who's really respected.
Speaker 1: And this proves to be probably the best administrative decision
Speaker 1: that Adam's going to make, because in a very short
Speaker 1: order Cannig is brought in more than five hundred new members. Wow.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he's very good at this. At the same time,
Speaker 1: Wishop succeeded in pushing changes to the Masonic by laws
Speaker 1: that allowed him to establish additional Illuminatus lodges in the
Speaker 1: larger organization. In time, the Illuminati grew to around twenty
Speaker 1: five hundred men, although there's debate about whether there were
Speaker 1: ever more than like six or seven hundred active at
Speaker 1: a time, which seems reasonable. Well that it makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty good size for a secret society in this period
Speaker 1: of time. So the problem is that Connig rises through
Speaker 1: the ranks as he had with the Masons, basically immediately
Speaker 1: and he is not a dumb guy. He isn't at
Speaker 1: least intelligent enough to realize something's up. And I'm going
Speaker 1: to quote from the book The Illuminati by the Charles
Speaker 1: River Press. The recruits began to raise their eyebrows, badgering
Speaker 1: Connig with questions about exactly who it was that they
Speaker 1: were serving. Up until this point, no one seemed to
Speaker 1: have an inkling as to who the other members of
Speaker 1: the Supreme Superiors were, apart from Bishop, and when Connig
Speaker 1: failed to produce these names, many began to grow wary.
Speaker 1: Connig approached why Shop on a number of occasions, and
Speaker 1: he grew even more discouraged when Wishop dodged his questions
Speaker 1: in an effort to distract him. Cannig was tasked with
Speaker 1: composing pamphlets about recruiting guidelines and constant updates featuring the
Speaker 1: most minor of changes. By the next year, Cannig's patients
Speaker 1: had worn thin. It was only when Cannig threatened to
Speaker 1: walk that Wishop finally came clean. To Kennig's horror, Wi
Speaker 1: Shop admitted that the Supreme Superiors, the ancient texts behind
Speaker 1: the topmost level of the Illuminati pyramid were entirely made up. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: Cannig learns there's absolutely nothing here now. At this point,
Speaker 1: Cannig's balls deep in the Enlightenment. He is very obsessed
Speaker 1: with these ideas of truth and openness that are kind
Speaker 1: of revolutionary in a Europe that was still largely run
Speaker 1: by Catholicism. He's offended by the fact that Wei Shops
Speaker 1: had lied and basically recreated this kind of system of
Speaker 1: secrecy and lies, just in a different form. Adam realizes
Speaker 1: that Cannig is going to be a problem because he's
Speaker 1: got these kind of principles, and so he begs him
Speaker 1: not to tell anybody. He instead tells Canig that I've
Speaker 1: been waiting all this time. All this time, I've been
Speaker 1: building the Illuminati for a worthy collaborator on the great
Speaker 1: work of creating this organization, and quote, I have found
Speaker 1: none other than you who penetrates into the spirit of
Speaker 1: this system as deeply as I do. She said, yes,
Speaker 1: meaning he's the only one that can smell the bullshit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's You're the only one who's realized I'm lying to everybody.
Speaker 1: So to keep Connig from leaving, he offers to let
Speaker 1: him write the curriculum for the Inner mysteries of the Illuminati.
Speaker 1: I mean that is the right call at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's smart move. It's kind of like if l
Speaker 1: Ron Hubbard had taken an apprentice to help him write
Speaker 1: about like Zenu or whatever. Connig takes the deal, but
Speaker 1: he's not thrilled with it. He is devastated when he
Speaker 1: realizes the Illuminati is younger than him. But he's recruited
Speaker 1: all these guys. So a big part of why he
Speaker 1: doesn't leave is like he doesn't want to tell all
Speaker 1: of his friends that he got conned and that they
Speaker 1: all got conned too. Yeah, so he he is like
Speaker 1: he's like into deep. It's the sunk cost fallacy he
Speaker 1: now has. It's like he has like he has like
Speaker 1: make it real now, Yeah, and he does. He writes
Speaker 1: a whole curriculum filled with the kind of elaborate magical
Speaker 1: rituals and ceremonies that were all the rage in Central Europe.
Speaker 1: Now this was the right thing to do for the Illuminati.
Speaker 1: But this really pisses off Adam Wi Shopped because Wi
Speaker 1: Shopped hates all that stuff and is only doing it
Speaker 1: to take money from rich people. The two fought constantly
Speaker 1: and after four years, Connig resigned. Sources dissent on exactly
Speaker 1: why this happens, but there are claims he mess left
Speaker 1: in the middle of a loud fight shouting that Adam
Speaker 1: was a megalomaniac with delusions of grant Here so it
Speaker 1: ends the way all radical political organizations end. Connig would
Speaker 1: later write his version of events out in a pamphlet
Speaker 1: basically a Zane, which remains her best source of It
Speaker 1: is funny how all of this has never changed, so
Speaker 1: good stuffin Yeah. So as an aside, I should note
Speaker 1: here because we've used Massimo Introviing as a source for
Speaker 1: a couple of these quotes here, one of the problems
Speaker 1: when you go to research the Illuminati is that it
Speaker 1: is a bitch to Google. I have used also a
Speaker 1: couple of different chat systems or a search systems, including
Speaker 1: an aipowered one. But like one of the problems with
Speaker 1: researching this is that a lot of the people who
Speaker 1: legitimately are experts on the Illuminati are also cranks themselves.
Speaker 1: So that brings me back to Massimo Introviing, because I
Speaker 1: have quoted him a few times in the business is interesting.
Speaker 1: We got to talk about him just a second, now
Speaker 1: I have cross checked his rite up with other sources.
Speaker 1: His right up on the Illuminati is extensive and accurate.
Speaker 1: It's geared towards dispelling conspiracy theories, and it does this well. However,
Speaker 1: Massimo is, as I stated, a sociologist of religion. He's
Speaker 1: also an intellectual property attorney, which is interesting given the
Speaker 1: connection between that and secret societies. He is very knowledgeable
Speaker 1: about the history of secret societies. He is also the
Speaker 1: founder of the Center for Studies on New Religions, which
Speaker 1: mostly exists to defend cults from governments trying to stop
Speaker 1: them from hurting people. Massimo has spent much of his
Speaker 1: career defending the Church of Scientology in court, and he
Speaker 1: has described as a cult apologist by his critics, although
Speaker 1: I believe he's a Roman Catholic. WHOA, that's interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's an interesting guy. You run into a lot of
Speaker 1: dudes like he's one of the less sketchy people who
Speaker 1: writes about the Illuminati, because at least he's doing it
Speaker 1: from a historic basis. But he's also a professional cult apologist.
Speaker 1: It's very straight. Yeah, it will working for the largest
Speaker 1: established cult. Yeah, in the world. It's awesome. It's just
Speaker 1: it's fun. You keep running into shit like that as
Speaker 1: you like go through books and articles and are like,
Speaker 1: who is this guy who seems to know a lot
Speaker 1: about these Adam vyshopped? Oh, he's a craik too. It's
Speaker 1: certainly interesting because like stuff like scientology does have a
Speaker 1: direct age back to this Bavarian illuminati. It sure does, yes,
Speaker 1: how it especially through like the Golden Dawn and Alistair Crowley,
Speaker 1: which I assue will get to at some point, we
Speaker 1: sure will, Garrison. But speaking of Alistair Crowley, you know
Speaker 1: what Crowley would do if he were here right now
Speaker 1: by one of these products and services make money by
Speaker 1: selling Oh yeah, I mean our our podcast is supported
Speaker 1: by gold, and if you move all of your investments
Speaker 1: to gold, it will let you weather a financial crash
Speaker 1: so that your investments can live to see the next dawn.
Speaker 1: Dawn we go, there, we go, Okay, we're back. Good stuff.
Speaker 1: The greatest form of flattery is the sigh of recognition. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I find the greatest form of flattery to be people
Speaker 1: giving me gold. Um, I would like to say that
Speaker 1: once I get the po box set up, send gold
Speaker 1: males gold. I'm gonna I'm gonna argue with you both,
Speaker 1: because I think the greatest form of flattery is becoming
Speaker 1: a cult apologist Roman Catholic who builds an entire website
Speaker 1: to defend the fallen Gong from the Chase government. Oh yeah, Garrison,
Speaker 1: that's where he's right up on. The Illuminati is hosted. No,
Speaker 1: this fullen Gong is such like boring as I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I know, disappointing the Bavarian Illuminati. So all right,
Speaker 1: So Knig leaves and despite his absence, by this point,
Speaker 1: he's helped get the Illuminati to such a side that
Speaker 1: size that it's become quite large and influential. Um and
Speaker 1: relief because they no longer have to pronounce his name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nobody has to deal with the problem of like trying
Speaker 1: to spell it's yeah, oh boy, what's called by his
Speaker 1: first name. So by this point, as the Illuminati has
Speaker 1: actually grown somewhat influential, including a number of like moderately
Speaker 1: prominent thinkers in some political people in Central Europe, Adam's
Speaker 1: own ideology has grown ever more radical. In letters to
Speaker 1: his followers, he expressed political attitudes that were adjacent to anarchism. Quote,
Speaker 1: when man lives under government, he has fallen, his worth
Speaker 1: is gone and his nature tarnished. So he has gotten
Speaker 1: pretty radical by this point, and Massimo, our cult apologist
Speaker 1: for a notes in his write up. One element that
Speaker 1: distinguished the Bavarian Illuminati from other German Masonic systems continued
Speaker 1: to be its politics. Again, up to the degree of
Speaker 1: Scottish Knight, the rituals preached submission to the authorities, but
Speaker 1: in the more secretive degree of priest there were allusions
Speaker 1: to the advantages of replacing monarchy with republic, such as
Speaker 1: if the king is not the best of the citizens,
Speaker 1: let the best be king. So it's a little problematic.
Speaker 1: There's like elements of we should tear down the system,
Speaker 1: and also we should build a system whereby most people
Speaker 1: don't know that we want to tear down the system
Speaker 1: because we can't trust them with that knowledge. And yeah,
Speaker 1: this is moving right along. But as with nig there
Speaker 1: are a few people who grow disillusioned with Adam's leadership,
Speaker 1: and one of them is a former member who starts
Speaker 1: popping up in bars in public places in Ingolstot, getting
Speaker 1: drunk and telling stories of the Illuminatis Initiation rituals. Now,
Speaker 1: these are based off the Masonic ritual. You're sitting in
Speaker 1: this like blind room alone for a while, blindfolded, and
Speaker 1: then at some point the blindfold is taken off and
Speaker 1: you're kind of like wandering around this space that's been
Speaker 1: set up to be kind of mind altering. His story
Speaker 1: includes like an empty red throne with a bunch of
Speaker 1: ceremonial robes, a skeleton lying on a table with a
Speaker 1: crown and a sword at his feet, and then at
Speaker 1: a certain point the initiative is taken to his feet
Speaker 1: and asked questions and he's hit in the face whenever
Speaker 1: he answers them wrong. So you've got that aspect of
Speaker 1: it too, And there's you know, that's probably broadly accurate
Speaker 1: to what the initiation rituals were, but more lurid stories
Speaker 1: than that start to spread, both from former members and
Speaker 1: from people who were just lying in that way that
Speaker 1: people do, and this starts to provide fuel for a
Speaker 1: movement directly opposed to the Illuminati. And now we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the Rosa Crucians. Now we've mentioned them before,
Speaker 1: and I think I kind of derivatively referred to them
Speaker 1: as a fake secret society. Did I did get kind
Speaker 1: of upset in in your Plevatsky episodes when they are
Speaker 1: a fake secret society, but not that way. Yes, So,
Speaker 1: the Rosa Crucians are an intellectual movement that's bubbled up
Speaker 1: in the early sixteen hundreds, and like the Illuminati, it
Speaker 1: began with a con a bunch of anonymous pamphlets that
Speaker 1: claim to be the writings of a man who definitely
Speaker 1: did not exist, and we're published again zine like claiming
Speaker 1: that a secret group called the Rosa Crucians were working
Speaker 1: to reform Europe's political order and use science to advance
Speaker 1: my kind. Now again, the person that it was supposed
Speaker 1: to have written these never existed. But an actual movement
Speaker 1: in philosophy and theological fault thought evolves as a result
Speaker 1: of this and kind of in its wake because of
Speaker 1: how well it spreads. And so there are different secret
Speaker 1: societies that are like the Order of the Rosa Cross
Speaker 1: that call themselves Rosicrucians. They're not necessarily connected in most
Speaker 1: cases by anything other than ideology, and they're not there's
Speaker 1: not like a central one that is the original one
Speaker 1: that we can specifically name, but there are different Rosicrucian
Speaker 1: societies up until the present day, where I just read
Speaker 1: an article about how the Rosicrucians, now that they don't
Speaker 1: need to be secret, are recruiting primarily on Facebook. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: I like that makes sense. Yeah. And in terms of
Speaker 1: like viewing like like in terms of like thinking about
Speaker 1: their organic spread, they chapters and like different spin like
Speaker 1: splinter groups start this same way, like different food nut
Speaker 1: bombs chapters start around the country. Like it's like that
Speaker 1: that is this style of growth when it's like this
Speaker 1: decentralized zine format that are that are of pamphlets being
Speaker 1: passed off between you know, weirdos who are like reading
Speaker 1: in the late sixteen hundreds. Well, in like food not bombs.
Speaker 1: The primary motivation informing chapters is less a desire to
Speaker 1: be a part of a specific organization and more adherence
Speaker 1: to a set of values and beliefs. Like it is
Speaker 1: and there's a there's a um, so what are their
Speaker 1: beliefs there a Crucians, Um, they're broadly they're they're not
Speaker 1: a secular organization, but they are broadly like pro science
Speaker 1: and pro kind of natural like using kind of natural
Speaker 1: science to gain more knowledge about the world. But there
Speaker 1: are there are also there are elements of religious mysticism,
Speaker 1: to it as well, So they are kind of like
Speaker 1: a Christian religious mystic tradition that is also pro science.
Speaker 1: Would be the broadest way of describing it. I think, um,
Speaker 1: yeah again, most of like if you if you read
Speaker 1: like historians who are experts on this, they'll say that, like, well,
Speaker 1: there were there are Rosicrucian chapters, Rosicrucian societies more than anything.
Speaker 1: The accurate way to view it is as an intellectual
Speaker 1: tradition that takes off across Europe, and the Rosicrucians are
Speaker 1: very influential, not just in their own societies, but within Masonry.
Speaker 1: A lot of Masons are Rosicrucians. And one of these
Speaker 1: Rosicrucian Masons who's in Bavaria is a guy named Johann
Speaker 1: von Volner who starts to organize a campaign against the
Speaker 1: Illuminati based on some of these rumors that are spreading
Speaker 1: in bars. He accuses y shopped not inaccurately, of promoting atheism.
Speaker 1: In seventeen eighty three, four Illuminati members, all professors, are
Speaker 1: arrested and interrogated. They broke basically immediately testifying that the
Speaker 1: organization existed to disavow Christianity Furthermore, they said, the Illuminati
Speaker 1: and this is the thing that really pisses off everyone
Speaker 1: supports the right to commit suicide. Interesting. Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: a huge part of the campaign against them, that they
Speaker 1: are pro people having the right to commit suicide and
Speaker 1: also the pro abortion. Like this, this is this is
Speaker 1: very I mean, this is not uncontroversial today. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you can see why a bunch of dudes talking this
Speaker 1: kind of shit in the late seventeen hundreds are going
Speaker 1: to piss off the powers that be. And one of
Speaker 1: those these these university elites are talking about having bodily
Speaker 1: autonomy and voting and and and and not liking any
Speaker 1: kind of deity. They're they're they're closing themselves off from
Speaker 1: the great blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah. Yea, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very because it's the it's complicated because they're all
Speaker 1: a bunch of like they've created this like very weird
Speaker 1: like series of lies to hide it. But like the
Speaker 1: core of illuminid ideology is people should be autonomous over
Speaker 1: their own bodies and maybe voting is better than kings. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: which up until about seven years ago, was not a
Speaker 1: particularly controversial thing to preach in the West. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: word gets out about all of these these scandalous deeds
Speaker 1: to the King of Prussia, who orders the Berlin Lodge
Speaker 1: seized by police. In this in the Berlin Lodge are
Speaker 1: files and files of y Shop's political and social theories,
Speaker 1: all of which are deeply heretical. So this pisses off
Speaker 1: everybody even more, and an order is issued to the
Speaker 1: Freemasons by the King to cut all ties with the Illuminati.
Speaker 1: The Mason swiftly disavowed the Illuminati, and Adam vyshopped, you know,
Speaker 1: finds himself kind of cut out and left in the cold, right,
Speaker 1: But as Cred goes through the roof, and then oh my,
Speaker 1: imagine all of the discourse going on at the time. Oh,
Speaker 1: it would be fascinating stuff. If all these people had
Speaker 1: had Twitter, it's so interesting. Go to Twitter threads and
Speaker 1: just like Randdom, people complaining about what's going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hear they let you, I hear, I hear they
Speaker 1: believe in the right to kill yourself. It would have
Speaker 1: been quite a time. So by seventeen eighty five, the
Speaker 1: Illuminati has been banned in Bavaria and all the cross
Speaker 1: Prussia bishopped attempted to carry on, and this time he's
Speaker 1: kind of truly underground because it is now in a
Speaker 1: legal secret society, and for a while they're able to
Speaker 1: keep up contact between the different parts of the Illuminati.
Speaker 1: They've got like writers traveling between these hidden lodges, bringing
Speaker 1: like correspondence and books between them and stuff. And one
Speaker 1: of these guys who's also one of Oishop's closest advisors,
Speaker 1: is a man named Jacob Lands, and he is traveling
Speaker 1: from one cell in Bavaria to another Illuminati cell one
Speaker 1: day with like a big bag full of books and
Speaker 1: paperwork when he gets struck by lightning. Okay, so it's cool.
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of detail that I've given in this story,
Speaker 1: like smoke about like specific conversations people had. We know
Speaker 1: that because this guy gets struck by lightning and his
Speaker 1: corps is found by the cops, and being German police,
Speaker 1: they take it all into evidence and it's preserved to
Speaker 1: this day. That's why all this is known, right, Like
Speaker 1: all of these papers were taken into evidence, and like
Speaker 1: people who do care about the actual history can go
Speaker 1: read them like it's still available. This is like this
Speaker 1: is like this is like getting arrested when you're like
Speaker 1: scrolling on signal and now, yeah, a big problems and
Speaker 1: you got smited, yes, and yes, it's like you were
Speaker 1: clearly killed by God. They find your body with your
Speaker 1: phone open and they're like sweet, it's like some discworld
Speaker 1: shit and discworld. No one's an atheist because the gods
Speaker 1: go around and fucking murder you. Um, I'm going to
Speaker 1: read a quote from the book Illuminati Again. Most damning
Speaker 1: of the indictments were the set of instructions drawn up
Speaker 1: by Why Shopped and Extress and addressed to the ostensibly
Speaker 1: active Illuminati members in Silesia. The members in Silesia were
Speaker 1: ordered to spy on the officials, engage the authorities knowledge
Speaker 1: and opinions of the order. They were also asked to
Speaker 1: provide input on who it was they believed had rated
Speaker 1: out to the authorities. So like, literally it is he's
Speaker 1: open with his signal for his like crime loop being like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: spy on the government. Is this has gotten considerably more
Speaker 1: cool like the past development. Yeah, so obviously the police
Speaker 1: don't like this and neither does the government. So there
Speaker 1: are more raids on more Illuminati safe houses because now
Speaker 1: they know where all of them are Um, they find
Speaker 1: more documents in the homes. They're a problem with this
Speaker 1: style of organization. Let's just be honest. Yeah, yeah it is.
Speaker 1: And another problem is that again why shopped has continued
Speaker 1: putting out propaganda lying about the real nature of the Illuminati.
Speaker 1: So when they raid this dead guy's house they find
Speaker 1: all of these these like pamphlets about how the Illuminatis
Speaker 1: secret leadership has total mental control over its members and
Speaker 1: like they can't they can be commanded to do anything
Speaker 1: and all. This is this is why you never ship
Speaker 1: post on Twitter, because it's going to be in court
Speaker 1: against you. They were ship posting. It gets the middle
Speaker 1: lot of trouble. There are also other documents found order
Speaker 1: arguing in favor of the right to abortion, the right
Speaker 1: of suicide, and in favor of atheism, all of which
Speaker 1: is dope. And now I'm going to read another quote
Speaker 1: from that book. That's very funny. You're gonna like this
Speaker 1: garrison most eye catching of all with a blue prints
Speaker 1: fends scrupulous machinery and devices. Each diagram was given its
Speaker 1: own description. For example, there was one for printing knockoff
Speaker 1: official seals. Another showed a safe of sorts equipped with
Speaker 1: multiple locks, which would be used to stash classified documents.
Speaker 1: The last showed a device that produced false receipts which
Speaker 1: could be used for underground abortions, and one of the
Speaker 1: folders there was even evidence found of why Shop procuring
Speaker 1: an abortion for his sister in law, which is like,
Speaker 1: this is exactly yeah. Yeah, Now they're not just advocating abortion,
Speaker 1: they're literally helping create the infrastructure to allow Yeah, it
Speaker 1: kind of seems like what happens because again five shops
Speaker 1: motivation is like I want to trade and move and
Speaker 1: like push illegal books on scholars and once they get
Speaker 1: actually banned as an organization, he's like, well, I guess
Speaker 1: let's create an underground abortion railroad. Yeah, which is we're doing.
Speaker 1: What we're doing is already a crime. Now we might
Speaker 1: as well just do other crimes. Yeah. Unfortunately the Lightning guy.
Speaker 1: But you know, it was a good effort. It was
Speaker 1: a noble attempt. So the media at the time goes
Speaker 1: into overdrive at this point, painting the Illuminati as a
Speaker 1: conspiracy to overthrow all of the governments of the world. Now,
Speaker 1: this is far yet they hadn't they did want to, Okay,
Speaker 1: that is fair to say they weren't pro overthrowing the
Speaker 1: governments of the world. They just didn't really and probably
Speaker 1: never would have had the ability to actually do this.
Speaker 1: And of course it's also worth noting most Illuminati members
Speaker 1: knew very little, if anything, of this. Yeah. In seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty seven, the same year the United States got its constitution,
Speaker 1: the Elector of Bavaria prescribed beheading for anyone found associated
Speaker 1: with the Illuminati. They are. It's interesting because they don't
Speaker 1: kill anyone over this. They arrest a bunch of people.
Speaker 1: There are a number of folks, including y Shopped, are
Speaker 1: forced out of Bavaria. They have to like leave. But
Speaker 1: the folks who are like charged and like get in
Speaker 1: trouble and stay in Bavaria. They're allowed to keep living
Speaker 1: their lives. But they have a bunch of prescriptions placed
Speaker 1: against them. One of them is that they can never
Speaker 1: communicate with anyone else who was in the Illuminati, even
Speaker 1: if they're like at a bar having a beer, Like,
Speaker 1: they can be punished for so much as communicating with
Speaker 1: anyone who had ever been in the Illuminati. I mean
Speaker 1: that still happens. I've had friends be like you can't
Speaker 1: talk to any other earth first or including your boyfriend
Speaker 1: ever again. Yep, it's another another tragic piece of continuity
Speaker 1: in radical history. So Adam flees the country. He winds
Speaker 1: up kind of holing up in a nearby city called Regensburg,
Speaker 1: where the local government offers him a yearly salary if
Speaker 1: he promises not to make any more secret societies. They
Speaker 1: put them on that eater, Like Adam, like, we'll give
Speaker 1: you money. Stop doing this a huge problem for everybody
Speaker 1: that's wild. It's like it's like so funny. It's like
Speaker 1: it's like a it's like a government pay you not
Speaker 1: to not to like write anywhere anarchist text. Don't don't
Speaker 1: make any znes. We'll give you a salary if you
Speaker 1: stopped making znes. That's so funny. Um, as far as
Speaker 1: we as far as we know, he takes it. Now,
Speaker 1: there are conspiracies that he basically goes underground and either
Speaker 1: sins agents or travels to the US and starts spreading
Speaker 1: spreading Illuminati values there. Um. But yeah, as far as
Speaker 1: we know he obeyed the edict. We we have a
Speaker 1: pretty good idea of what he spent his life doing.
Speaker 1: Just because he writes a shitload more books. Um, he
Speaker 1: writes and these are all like, basically, he spins the
Speaker 1: rest of his life writing books and pamphlets defending the
Speaker 1: Illuminati against allegations against He's basically continually yeah, he's basically
Speaker 1: having like the eighteenth century equivalent of a flame war
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life, which is like thirty
Speaker 1: five more years, forty five more years. He kind of
Speaker 1: never gets over this, and he's always angry that people
Speaker 1: have unfairly judged the Illuminati. But he dies around eighteen thirty.
Speaker 1: Doctor Tony Page, who translated one of Adam's defenses of himself,
Speaker 1: summarized the man's life this way. Wischat's plan was to
Speaker 1: educate Illuminati followers in the highest levels of humanity and
Speaker 1: the morality, based on his teachings on the supremacy of reason,
Speaker 1: allied with the spirit of the golden rule of not
Speaker 1: doing to others what one would not wish done to
Speaker 1: one's self, so that if the Illuminati alumnis subsequently attained
Speaker 1: positions of significance and power, they could exert a benevolent
Speaker 1: and uplifting influence upon society at large. His project was
Speaker 1: utopian and naively optimistic, and he himself was certainly not
Speaker 1: without flaws of character, but neither he nor his plan
Speaker 1: was evil or violent in and of themselves. It is
Speaker 1: one of the deplorable and tragic ironies of history that
Speaker 1: a man who tried to inculcate virtue, philanthropy, social justice,
Speaker 1: and morality has become one of the great hate figures
Speaker 1: of twenty first century conspiracy thinking. And that is that
Speaker 1: is kind of sad um, Yeah, that that is not
Speaker 1: the legacy that you would want, as like a guy
Speaker 1: whose goal was to kind of spread enlightenment and knowledge
Speaker 1: in a more open society that like, you become sort
Speaker 1: of the central figure of obsession for the people who
Speaker 1: work to destroy that society. What's pieces of it get built?
Speaker 1: That is, I can't really think of another story that's
Speaker 1: bleak in exactly that specific way. The whole the whole
Speaker 1: lineage of this illuminati thing has such an interesting like
Speaker 1: backfire effect. Yeah, it makes me like contemplate what what
Speaker 1: types of tactics are worth are worth using when in
Speaker 1: this in this type of like long term, long term
Speaker 1: strategy of like passing down knowledge. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: an argument could be made that, like, well, probably part
Speaker 1: of why this backfire so much is that as much
Speaker 1: as he was committed to these Enlightenment virtues of openness,
Speaker 1: and like reason, he did it by lying and pretending
Speaker 1: to be teaching people magic. Like so maybe the fact
Speaker 1: that maybe that's part of why things went so bad,
Speaker 1: it's probably not a non factor. Yeah, I mean, and
Speaker 1: it's like there's a reason that, say, at least leftism,
Speaker 1: at least anarchism does a similar trajector does this trajectory
Speaker 1: where you start off with like baccoon and is really
Speaker 1: into secret societies, and then eventually anarchists start moving away
Speaker 1: from sort of conspiratorial work and towards this like open
Speaker 1: organizing still of crime. Right, like in the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: I think in Germany the main people who were providing
Speaker 1: abortions were syndicalists. And syndicalism is literally just a method
Speaker 1: by which to do crime at scale, but it's like
Speaker 1: open instead of closed, and it uses different types of
Speaker 1: things in order to provide safety. And it's interesting because
Speaker 1: I think, you know, he's a Bishops a little early
Speaker 1: to be calling there are very few people in this
Speaker 1: period calling themselves anarchists. No, No, I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: is at this point. Yeah, But I mean, like just
Speaker 1: in terms of realism, but people did it is interesting
Speaker 1: people did, like elites in Europe who were angry and
Speaker 1: opposed to the Illuminati did accuse him of being an anarchist. Oh. Interesting,
Speaker 1: not unlike the pope, because again it's not that's not
Speaker 1: a term with much political meaning at that point, but
Speaker 1: it just means terrorist at the exact exactly. And I
Speaker 1: think he if he'd been a century lead, he might
Speaker 1: have been. I don't think he would have been a syndicalist.
Speaker 1: He was kind of no, very fundamentally an elitist, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why the Illuminati is what it is. He would
Speaker 1: have been Blancy. Oh, I don't know much about them.
Speaker 1: Is the French guy who kind of predates Lenin in
Speaker 1: some ways. It's like it's kind of like a vanguardist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very vanguardists, right, like you have to have this party
Speaker 1: and they have to hold power in certain ways to themselves.
Speaker 1: And yeah, part of the story here is that we
Speaker 1: are still dealing with the side effects of how problematic
Speaker 1: that can be because all a lot of this is
Speaker 1: going to echo on through the ages. But you know
Speaker 1: what will echo on through the ages, most the dulcet
Speaker 1: tone gold these messages these to get you to buy
Speaker 1: the gold. The products and services that support this podcast
Speaker 1: are like those pillars in the desert that are built
Speaker 1: to warn future people away from nuclear waste sites, but
Speaker 1: instead they're there to tell future people where value is
Speaker 1: and what promo codes they can use to get access
Speaker 1: to truly quality products and services. So have a gaze
Speaker 1: at that. Ah, we're back. So the Illuminati they fall
Speaker 1: apart in kind of the mid to late seventeen eighties,
Speaker 1: and not all that long after the Illuminati gets banned
Speaker 1: and threatened with beheadings if they try to reform in
Speaker 1: seventeen huh, yeah, that's leg Yeah, right right around the
Speaker 1: time they start to be purged, the French Revolution starts,
Speaker 1: and not that long after, you know, it all comes
Speaker 1: to an end in seventeen ninety nine. That's when the
Speaker 1: French Revolution kind of comes to its end, right after
Speaker 1: about a decade of pretty gnarly shit, would it would
Speaker 1: be fair to say, And the nature of the French Revolution,
Speaker 1: the fact that it comes so suddenly, the fact that
Speaker 1: it is so bloody, that it is such it so
Speaker 1: radically up ends the power balance in Europe. It's one
Speaker 1: of these things that like particularly elites in Europe, cannot
Speaker 1: believe could happen organically. Now, obviously, if you actually look
Speaker 1: at the history of the French Revolution, it makes total
Speaker 1: sense everything economically that's happening, the measures of the ferment
Speaker 1: takes kind of as resistance to it spreads, like the
Speaker 1: different kinds of austerity that people are asked to endure.
Speaker 1: It makes total sense that there's a revolution, and it
Speaker 1: makes total sense anytime there's a revolution, there's a pretty
Speaker 1: good chance it's going to turn into a killing spree.
Speaker 1: But people in Europe are like not normal people, like elites,
Speaker 1: particularly rich people in like England, are like something, this
Speaker 1: can't have happened organically, Like there must have been some
Speaker 1: sort of conspiracy behind this, And so they start looking
Speaker 1: at like, well, what are these French revolutionaries, Like what
Speaker 1: are these people? Especially if the early stages, like what
Speaker 1: are the three things they're all shouting for? Liberty, egality,
Speaker 1: and fraternity? Right, well, those are the same things the
Speaker 1: Illuminati advocated. Yeah, we've we've just purged this thing in
Speaker 1: Central Europe that came out of the Masons that are
Speaker 1: speaking for this, and then there's a revolution just a
Speaker 1: few years later. Once these guys go underground in France.
Speaker 1: That can't be just a coincidence, right, Yeah, so I'm wondered.
Speaker 1: I now understand the connection. Thank you Robert for doing
Speaker 1: this podcast. Explain the French The Bavarian Illuminati caused the
Speaker 1: French Revolution. Oh yes, of a problematic number of people
Speaker 1: are going to become convinced of that, Margaret. And one
Speaker 1: of those guys was an abbot. Again all these Catholic
Speaker 1: motherfuckers is always Yeah, it's an abbot named Augustine Berwell.
Speaker 1: And another guy who gets convinced is John Robinson, and
Speaker 1: Robinson writes attract with a banger title Proofs of a
Speaker 1: conspiracy against all the religions and governments of Europe, carried
Speaker 1: on in the secret meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading societies.
Speaker 1: Serious banger of a title. Now, I love Howers used
Speaker 1: to be. I want to kind of go into some
Speaker 1: detail about how wrong he is, especially when he connects
Speaker 1: like the Masons and Reading societies to the overthrow of
Speaker 1: the French government. Because the Freemasons are, as we talked about,
Speaker 1: influential and spreading Enlightenment ideas, particularly in France. But one
Speaker 1: of the things that's happening in France with the Masons
Speaker 1: is that, like pretty much alone in the rest of Europe,
Speaker 1: in France the Masons admit women. And this is because
Speaker 1: France is just a lot more advanced one and this
Speaker 1: is before the French Revolution, right, they start taking in
Speaker 1: female members and they are female Masonic lodges, which doesn't
Speaker 1: really happen anywhere else. This is going to be an
Speaker 1: extended digression, but I think it's worthwhile because what happens
Speaker 1: here is fascinating. I'm going to quote again from Janet
Speaker 1: Burke's paper in the Journal of the History of European Ideas.
Speaker 1: Quote as they ascended to ever higher degrees, always after
Speaker 1: having mastered and lived the ideas and feelings of the
Speaker 1: preceding degree. The women were exposed to the Enlightenment concepts
Speaker 1: of liberty, equality, and even a budding, uniquely eighteenth century
Speaker 1: form of feminism. They were taught to understand their rights
Speaker 1: as women and demand them from the world dominated by men.
Speaker 1: Yet the force of fraternity remained strong. In each degree.
Speaker 1: Bonds with both their Masonic sisters and their sisters outside
Speaker 1: the lodges were solidified through the ritual process. The powerful
Speaker 1: rituals the emotional bonds of sisterhood, the assertiveness of their
Speaker 1: incipient feminism, and the novel feelings of friendship as a
Speaker 1: union of virtuous souls made their impact on these women
Speaker 1: and altered the way they faced their day to day tasks.
Speaker 1: From the wives of judicial nobility heavily populating some of
Speaker 1: the provincial lodges of adoption to the glittering court lodges
Speaker 1: in Paris, powerful women worked both alone and with their
Speaker 1: husbands to alter environments outside the lodge, just as they
Speaker 1: had done behind the closed doors of their temples. An
Speaker 1: intense spirit of independence, strong dedication to charity, an interest
Speaker 1: in new ideas, and profound loyalty to friends characterized many
Speaker 1: of these women. So contrad to this conspiracy theory, the
Speaker 1: Freemasons in France are part of the ruling class. Now,
Speaker 1: there's a contribute, a contribution that is made to the
Speaker 1: revolution in that anytime you have a revolution, it often
Speaker 1: is preceded by an authoritarian regime, slightly opening up aspects
Speaker 1: of society and an attempt to release steam. This is
Speaker 1: a thing that has happened in a number of cases.
Speaker 1: There's a piece of that going on here. But it's
Speaker 1: interesting to discuss kind of how integrated to the power
Speaker 1: structure female Masons often were. Princess Marie de l'embald, superintendent
Speaker 1: of the household of Queen Marie Antoinette, was one such
Speaker 1: a lady Mason. She was outspoken, a reformer who got
Speaker 1: in constant trouble for her refusal to throw the kind
Speaker 1: of giant, expensive, hideously wasteful parties that the French royal
Speaker 1: family was known for. This is a problem when you're
Speaker 1: the superintendent of the queen's household. So eventually she gets
Speaker 1: fired because she's like protesting against the wastefulness of this
Speaker 1: kind of lifestyle that the court has, and she's pushed
Speaker 1: out of court until the revolution breaks out in seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty nine. Now, when that happens, all of the queen's
Speaker 1: like friends abandon her right, all of these kind of
Speaker 1: courtly friends who'd been attending the parties. Marie de l'ambald,
Speaker 1: she's very much invested in these Masonic attitudes of fraternity,
Speaker 1: which for female Masons, a big part of what the
Speaker 1: female like Masonic lodges are pushing is not just solidy
Speaker 1: with other female Masons, but cross feminine solidarity in a
Speaker 1: society that's male dominated. So even though she'd gotten fired
Speaker 1: by the queen for her beliefs, the Lambald comes back
Speaker 1: after the revolution breaks out to stand by her because
Speaker 1: of this kind of attitude of radical solidarity that she
Speaker 1: feels like she has to show for the Queen. Interesting
Speaker 1: she stays with her until the end, and in fact,
Speaker 1: when they are all captured by revolutionaries, Marita Lambald is beheaded.
Speaker 1: Her corps is mutilated and it is left directly in
Speaker 1: front of the Queen's cell, so she has to look
Speaker 1: at it while her head is paraded around Paris. Now
Speaker 1: that's a bummer of a story, but I bring it
Speaker 1: up because it is also shows another really weird continuity
Speaker 1: to modern day conspiracy theorists starting in the seventeen nineties
Speaker 1: claimed the Masons in the Illuminati had started the revolution.
Speaker 1: In reality, a good number of the people massacred in
Speaker 1: the terror were Masons. And this is kind of the
Speaker 1: start of a long pattern in conspiracy culture of blaming
Speaker 1: victims for their complicity and some sort of convoluted scheme
Speaker 1: that they were actually the victims of rather than the
Speaker 1: perfect ms. That goes back pretty far too well, that's
Speaker 1: what's always so funny about all this is like you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: the connection of QAnon and stuff, which I'm excited to
Speaker 1: hear more about later. But it's like, the cranks are
Speaker 1: not the conspiracists. They're the conspiracy theorists. The people who
Speaker 1: spent around the conspiracy is the people conspiring about the conspiracy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the conspiracy. The conspiracy is Marie de Lombald being having
Speaker 1: like coming to the conclusion that it is important to
Speaker 1: show radical solidarity with other women and then dying for it. Likes,
Speaker 1: that's the conspiracist in this case. Right. Anyway, none of
Speaker 1: what actually happens in France matters because by this point
Speaker 1: it has become a conspiracy theory, and in very short order,
Speaker 1: Barrowell and Robinson's tracks traveled across the pond to a
Speaker 1: little place you might have heard of called the United
Speaker 1: States of America, where a Massachusetts ministers. Oh you're not
Speaker 1: gonna like it anymore, is the story goes on, Margaret.
Speaker 1: A Massachusetts minister named Jedediah Morse comes across them, and
Speaker 1: he grows obsessed with the Illuminati, which he decides is
Speaker 1: still out there and was clearly responsible for why things
Speaker 1: in France went so bad, so he dedicates he starts
Speaker 1: preaching and writing tracks about how the Illuminati is out
Speaker 1: there trying to quote, root out, and abolish Christianity and
Speaker 1: overturn all civil government. Now, Jedediah Morse is a textbook
Speaker 1: author as well as a preacher, so he had a
Speaker 1: lot of influence. And his ship spreads, and it spreads,
Speaker 1: and it spreads. On May nineteenth, seventeen ninety eight, President
Speaker 1: John Adams had proclaimed a day of solemn humiliation, fasting,
Speaker 1: and prayer, but Morse did not give a lecture on
Speaker 1: any of those topics. From a write up and slate
Speaker 1: quote in that day's speech, Morse unspooled a bizarre conspiracy theory,
Speaker 1: alleging that a shadowy cabal the villains called the Illuminati,
Speaker 1: an offshoot of the Freemasons, were aiming to destroy everything
Speaker 1: that Americans held dear. This group of philosophers, zealous, according
Speaker 1: to Morse, had secretly extended its branches through a great
Speaker 1: part of Europe and even into America. Their goal was
Speaker 1: to abolish Christianity, private property in nearly every foundation of
Speaker 1: good order around the world. According to Morse, they opposed marriage,
Speaker 1: encouraged people to explore all kinds of sensual pleasures and
Speaker 1: proposed a promiscuous intercourse among the sexes. Oh shit, this
Speaker 1: is just this is just your average Yeah, he has
Speaker 1: a normal Republican member of Congress. Yeah, so whereas like
Speaker 1: a lot of people are like yeah, yeah, I know that,
Speaker 1: but just but notwith pretending like it's bad. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's all fine. Yeah, that's all like normal stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to continue that quote. Morsk told his congregation
Speaker 1: that the Illuminati hoped to infect the people of America
Speaker 1: through a kind of cultural warfare. They were spreading their
Speaker 1: doctrines by worming their way in among reading and debating societies.
Speaker 1: The reviewers, journalists or editors of newspapers or other periodical publications.
Speaker 1: The booksellers and postmasters. Oh my god, it's just the
Speaker 1: culture wars coming for the libraries. The culture war has
Speaker 1: never stopped. I bet those people protecting drag shows are
Speaker 1: the Illuminati. Now. One of the things that Morse also
Speaker 1: points out is that there are even some influential members
Speaker 1: of the Founding Fathers who were illuminatus. You want to
Speaker 1: guess who he names? Franklin, No, Jefferson, No, Neither those
Speaker 1: guys are basing Pain. That's exactly right. Thomas Paine famed Illuminatus,
Speaker 1: which is not me, is nothing but a compliment to
Speaker 1: Thomas Pain. Yeah, yeah, totally the only truly based Founding
Speaker 1: father Franklin kept wanting to be based and they kept
Speaker 1: being like, or I could buy people, and his friends
Speaker 1: were like, no, you were against that. Yeah he gotta well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, he became an abolitionist. Um okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: he just was not. Like. One of the things that
Speaker 1: one of the reasons Pain gets picked is that Pain
Speaker 1: is very, especially by the end of his life, very
Speaker 1: anti christian He write, like, writes a book of critiques
Speaker 1: against Christianity. Um yeah, in a way that's like, which
Speaker 1: is like, you know, sketching at the time. This is
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds. Yeah, um, sometimes I'm not afraid like
Speaker 1: writing a fucking book against Christianity, and yeah, I'm willing
Speaker 1: to take a stand against Christianity in the year eighteen
Speaker 1: hundred and fucking dot Ye it's yeah, he he's a
Speaker 1: bold man. And again Morris is a piece of shit,
Speaker 1: but solid pick from member of the illuminati among the
Speaker 1: Founding generation. Yeah. Yeah, the Bernie Sanders of the Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like, oh that guy, he's a little different frank. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: other notable figures in America at the time who jumped
Speaker 1: onto the Illuminati conspiracy bandwagon included the president of Yale
Speaker 1: and the attitude like this guy's attitude. The Yale President's
Speaker 1: attitude is that Americans have to come back to God
Speaker 1: to defeat this satanic conspiracy. Where religion prevails, Illuminism cannot
Speaker 1: make disciples, a French directory, cannot govern a nation, cannot
Speaker 1: be made slaves, nor villains, nor atheists, nor beasts. He
Speaker 1: reminded his readers that if this dangerous society succeeded in
Speaker 1: its plans, the children of evangelicals would be forced to
Speaker 1: read the work of deists or become kuncubines of a
Speaker 1: society that treated chastity is a prejudice, adultery is a virtue,
Speaker 1: and marriage is a farce. Yeah, it's just all the same. Yeah,
Speaker 1: specifically that the religious freedom is to not let their
Speaker 1: children read stuff. That is the religious freedom that they need.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting because it gets framed a lot
Speaker 1: as like, look at how crazy the GOP has gone.
Speaker 1: But the only thing religious freedom has ever meant in
Speaker 1: the context of the United States of America is the
Speaker 1: freedom to stop your children from learning things. This is
Speaker 1: the only supportable conclusion by the actual evidence. That is
Speaker 1: what people who talk about religious freedom primarily mean in
Speaker 1: a political sense in this country. I want the freedom
Speaker 1: to stop my kid from encountering ideas other than what
Speaker 1: I believe. Yeah, totally just cool. Anyway, homeschooling is good.
Speaker 1: So the mania over the Illuminati spread as far as
Speaker 1: the former President of the United States, George Washington, who
Speaker 1: stated that he was satisfied that the Illuminati had in
Speaker 1: fact spread to the United States in an attempt to
Speaker 1: destroy it. Abigail Adams recommended Robinson's book, which was basically
Speaker 1: an unhinged conspiratorial screed to all of her friends. America's
Speaker 1: founding fathers and mothers bought into the Illuminati conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: so hard that some scholars argue had helped set a
Speaker 1: tone for the new nation that has remained with it
Speaker 1: ever since. In his infamous essay The Paranoid Style in
Speaker 1: American Politics, which is probably the single most important piece
Speaker 1: of reading anyone can read in order to understand the
Speaker 1: American right wing in a meaningful way, Richard Hofstadter describes
Speaker 1: how the anti Illuminati conspiracy hysteria of the seventeen nineties
Speaker 1: merged with a broader anti Masonic movement in the eighteen
Speaker 1: twenties and thirties. At first, this movement may seem to
Speaker 1: be no more than an extension or repetition of the
Speaker 1: anti Masonic theme sounded in the outcry against the Bavarian Illuminati.
Speaker 1: But whereas the panic of the seventeen nineties was confined
Speaker 1: mainly to New England and linked to an ultra conservative
Speaker 1: point of view, the later anti Masonic movement affected many
Speaker 1: parts of the Northern United States and was intimately linked
Speaker 1: with popular democracy and rule egalitarianism. Although anti Masonry happened
Speaker 1: to be anti Jacksonian, Jackson was a Mason, it manifested
Speaker 1: the same animus against the closure of opportunity for the
Speaker 1: common man and against aristocratic institutions that one's finds in
Speaker 1: the Jacksonian crusade against the Bank of the United States.
Speaker 1: The anti Masonic movement was a product not merely of
Speaker 1: natural enthusiasm, but also of the vicissitudes of party politics.
Speaker 1: It was joined and used by a great many men
Speaker 1: who did not fully share its original anti Masonic feelings.
Speaker 1: It attracted the support of several reputable statesmen who had
Speaker 1: only mild sympathy with its fundamental bias, but who as politicians,
Speaker 1: could not afford to ignore it. Now, what does that
Speaker 1: sound like? I mean, it's it's just all of it.
Speaker 1: The thing I was thinking of when you're reading that
Speaker 1: is just how much of the current stuff we're dealing
Speaker 1: with now will be viewed in this same way in
Speaker 1: like two hundred years, Like all the stuff around like
Speaker 1: like like drag shows and COVID and all, like all
Speaker 1: this type of thing is like that's it's like, this
Speaker 1: will be viewed in this same weird, like weird like
Speaker 1: conspiratorial legs in the future as there's like you know,
Speaker 1: group groups of Antifa defending these drug shows and there's
Speaker 1: people in the government talking about this organized efforts to
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah. It's like it's it's it's all.
Speaker 1: It's all the same style of conspiracism that just it's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's always interesting to think that you're
Speaker 1: like that you actually are like living through history and
Speaker 1: no what what what what you're experiencing now will be
Speaker 1: reminisced on the same way we reminisce on these weird
Speaker 1: like these weird antium anti Mason movements and like the
Speaker 1: early eighteen hundreds. Yeah, optimism about the continuation of society.
Speaker 1: I think the future at some point, the future version
Speaker 1: of a podcaster, which will probably like be a guy
Speaker 1: sitting around a barrel fire in the ruins of Chicago,
Speaker 1: will tell all of this story, but with like an
Speaker 1: extra couple of chapters of good stuff. Margaret, how do
Speaker 1: you what's the best way to start a barrel fire?
Speaker 1: Is it lots of gasoline? I mean, that's the fastest
Speaker 1: way to start. For the fastest way to start almost
Speaker 1: two fire, is you take you take the mystery gas can,
Speaker 1: because there's always a mystery gas can, Yeah, the one
Speaker 1: that's been there for a few years past what you
Speaker 1: want to try putting in your car. Yeah. And it's
Speaker 1: also like you're not you don't remember. If it's diesel,
Speaker 1: you don't remember, If it's a gas you don't remember.
Speaker 1: If you added some oil to it. It might have
Speaker 1: been the one that you did like one to five.
Speaker 1: Maybe where you live floods a lot, and there might
Speaker 1: have been like water might have gotten into it and
Speaker 1: you're not sure. Yeah, the untrustworthy gas can. The untrustworthy
Speaker 1: gas can is how you start a barrel fire. In
Speaker 1: my experience, that is the best way to start a
Speaker 1: barrel fire. That's why you got to rotate out your
Speaker 1: your good and bad fucking fuel cans. Yeah, well label them. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's never going to happen. I don't know. I'm like
Speaker 1: eighty percent good at tasting the difference between diesel and
Speaker 1: regular fuel. Um, see the people whom you know, the
Speaker 1: there was that campaign you can't drink oil or yeah,
Speaker 1: like so then all the yeah, well that was the
Speaker 1: I mean kind of reasonably in some ways the right way.
Speaker 1: People would go on YouTube and then drink motor oil,
Speaker 1: like clean motor oil, not use motor oil, and be like, look,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of neutral. It's so funny. I think
Speaker 1: that we should have just gone harder with that and
Speaker 1: like basically tried to do like the gallon of milk challenge,
Speaker 1: but with I don't know, like diesel fuel. Just see
Speaker 1: what we can get them to do. Yeah, We're never
Speaker 1: the libs need to accept that we are never going
Speaker 1: to argue our way out of this. You cannot convince
Speaker 1: people of anything like about the irrationality of any of
Speaker 1: these movements, because they are based in irrationality. But we
Speaker 1: could probably get them to drink diesel fuel if we
Speaker 1: all work hard at it, and that would be really funny.
Speaker 1: This is what I'm going to read into the transcript.
Speaker 1: The bard who has this as a transcript to read
Speaker 1: around the barrel fire, got it from court transcripts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. After the entire state of Florida dies in
Speaker 1: a diesel accident, a freak diesel drinking accident, the remnants
Speaker 1: of Florida of the cool zone media, well, thank you
Speaker 1: for being a part of passing off this arcane knowledge
Speaker 1: to the to the future generation. You're all in a
Speaker 1: secret society. Tell anyone who asked that this podcast is
Speaker 1: just about you know, Hitler or whatever. That'll that'll get him, No,
Speaker 1: tell him it's true crime. Tell him. Tell him some
Speaker 1: broad got murdered and we're gonna like spend thirty hours
Speaker 1: talking about it. Anyway. The broad who got murdered was
Speaker 1: civil democracy. Yeah, Margaret got anything to plug? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have a podcast. I don't know if if you're listening,
Speaker 1: if you like podcasts or not, but if you do,
Speaker 1: maybe you like history podcasts, and if you do, I've
Speaker 1: got a podcast for you. It's called Cool People Who
Speaker 1: Did Cool Stuff. It's available on Cool Oh yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: Schools on Media is still exists and has not been
Speaker 1: sued into oblivion by the remnants of Florida until we
Speaker 1: go down taking out Florida like gandal fighting the bowl
Speaker 1: rog Yeah, just falling into a bit together. Okay. As
Speaker 1: someone who lives in West Virginia, I have to be
Speaker 1: a little bit careful when you blanketly make fun of
Speaker 1: people of a state. But that said, look, man, I
Speaker 1: grew up in Texas. If there's one thing that entitles
Speaker 1: me to do, it's make fun of Florida. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: fair enough. And then also, if you want to make
Speaker 1: fun of a bunch of other people, you can read
Speaker 1: my book Escape from Insul Island, which is about making
Speaker 1: fun of insalls and then feeling sort of like trolls
Speaker 1: remorse halfway through writing it and actually start talking about
Speaker 1: what's wrong with the prison industrial complex. Um. And that
Speaker 1: is available from Tangled Wilderness dot org. You can get
Speaker 1: it wherever you get books. Probably I don't know, hell yeah,
Speaker 1: hell yeah, Well be strange and a Tangled wilderness and
Speaker 1: will continue to be normal. You're in not a tangled wilderness.
Speaker 1: Do you want to ask Garrison if they have anything
Speaker 1: they'd like to plug? Or is wow, just clear gar
Speaker 1: Garrison is so secretive about what they do. Would they
Speaker 1: would they want people to know? Would they want to
Speaker 1: Why do you let them speak for themselves? I can't anyways,
Speaker 1: I can't believe. I can't believe I'm facing this type
Speaker 1: of discrimination. No, this is you're trying You're trying to
Speaker 1: silence my uh my, my enlightened knowledge. But no, um,
Speaker 1: if you want to hear about a collection of people
Speaker 1: who the Georgia government, that is the state of the
Speaker 1: State of Georgia alleges is a is a secret is
Speaker 1: a secret coalition of of of organized people who are
Speaker 1: who are who are fighting against the government. You can
Speaker 1: listen to my recent series on the Defend the Alant
Speaker 1: of Force movement and the different types of state repression
Speaker 1: that they are facing using very similar kind of conspiratorial,
Speaker 1: you know, group association type language to try to hurt
Speaker 1: the people that are that are actually trying to stop
Speaker 1: a force from being cut down. So that a batch
Speaker 1: of four episodes just came out on it could happen here.
Speaker 1: That is most of what I've been doing the past month.
Speaker 1: Oh so go do that. Check out those episodes, which
Speaker 1: should be out by the time this airs. Will certainly
Speaker 1: be out by the time this airs. Um and and
Speaker 1: go again. I really can't advise you enough. Go weld
Speaker 1: galvanized steel without wearing a respirator. It will reveal to
Speaker 1: you hidden truths from the sea masters of the world.
Speaker 1: That's that's They're hidden in galvanized steel. It's like a
Speaker 1: genie's bottle. You got to break it open. See, you
Speaker 1: can fuck a genie, like that new Frank Miller movie,
Speaker 1: which was pretty fucking dope in my opinion. Wait, what's
Speaker 1: the movie where they fuck a genie? Oh, it's like
Speaker 1: it's like three thousand years of Solitude or something like that,
Speaker 1: A thousand I forget the exact title. Something of Solitude,
Speaker 1: but it's like it's Tilda Swinton fucking an indus Alba genie.
Speaker 1: It's pretty dope. All right, I think you should. You
Speaker 1: should tell people that, not specifically, the Liberals don't want
Speaker 1: Biden is coming for your right to to stout respirator.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that too. Yeah, Joe Biden just said during
Speaker 1: the State of the Union, the late part in it
Speaker 1: that you didn't hear that he wants Americans to stop
Speaker 1: Weldon galvanized steel without respirators. First they came, and now
Speaker 1: they come for our A real alpha male m doesn't
Speaker 1: word a respiratored. Oh god, it don't let that be
Speaker 1: the last word of the podcast. It Cocked behind the
Speaker 1: Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
Speaker 1: from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com,
Speaker 1: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.