-Caveat Lector-
http://www.execpc.com/~jfish/na/093096n1.txt
ROOTS OF SUBVERSION
By William H. McIlhany
The New American, September 30, 1996
'Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism,' by Abbe Augustin
Barruel, Fraser, Michigan: Real-View-Books, American Council on
Economics and Society, 1995, 846 pages, single-volume reprint of
a four-volume English translation published in 1798 by T. Burton,
London, $29.95. Available from American Opinion Book Services, P.O.
Box 8040, Appleton, WI 54913. Add $4.00 for shipping and handling.
The years 1796 to 1798 saw the publication of two important
presentations of evidence concerning an international conspiracy,
then only decades old, which had devastated France and was
threatening the entire civilized world. That conspiracy had
coalesced into a continuing organizational structure with the
founding of the Order of the Illuminati by Adam Weishaupt on
May 1, 1776 in Ingolstadt, Bavaria.
The conspirators in the Order came from the top levels of society,
and their ultimate goal was the destruction of all existing
religious and political institutions, all forms of traditional
religious faith, and all governments. They were committed to a
campaign of worldwide revolution to destroy the existing order.
They hoped that the continuing organizational structure they
established would eventually succeed in imposing on the world
a "solution" to the chaos they had caused: a totalitarian world
government -- a "new world order."
Evil Exposed
In 1785 the Elector of Bavaria, Carl Theodore, discovered the
secret papers of the Illuminati, which revealed the evil plan.
He published and distributed the papers to all endangered heads
of state. The two important studies published from 1796-98 were
substantially based on this primary source documentation. One of
those works, 'Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and
Governments of Europe,' published in Dublin, Ireland in 1797, was
written by John Robison, a prominent scientist and professor at the
University of Edinburgh. His work, which was originally circulated
in Great Britain and the new American Republic, was reprinted in
1967 by Western Islands, the publishing arm of the John Birch
Society, under the shortened title 'Proofs of a Conspiracy.'
It is still available in paperback (contact American Opinion
Book Services at the above address).
The second work, much lengthier and more detailed, is Abb�
Barruel's 'Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism,' the
subject of this review. Born in France in 1741, Abb� Barruel was
educated by the Jesuits and entered the Society of Jesus. During
suppression of the Jesuits in France, he resided for some years in
Moravia and Bohemia and traveled in Italy as a tutor for a young
nobleman. In addition to Memoirs, he wrote several other books
prior to his death in 1820, including his 'History of the Clergy
During the French Revolution.'
Originally in separate volumes, Memoirs consists of four parts.
The first two volumes, originally published in French in 1796,
concern the anti-Christian and anti-monarchical conspiracy of 1796
and expose certain French and European philosophers of the early
to mid-18th century, particularly members of the French Academy
in Paris.
To illustrate the vicious philosophical campaign against
Christianity, Barruel focuses on the works of Voltaire. As for
the anti-monarchical campaign, he examines the works of Montesquieu
and Rousseau. Modern-day advocates of a limited constitutional
republic who may wonder what is wrong with opposition to monarchy
should keep in mind that the conspiracy which Barruel traced --
from philosophers whom he called the "sophisters of impiety" to the
Illuminati -- targeted all religious and political institutions and
forms of government, including the infant American Republic, and
sought as the ultimate goal an international totalitarianism.
Rise of the Order
One of the principal weapons used by the sophisters of impiety,
particularly Diderot, was the publication of the Encyclop�die
beginning in 1751, and its eventual Supplement. The conspirators
hoped that this work would become the standard reference for all
learned and literate persons on virtually all subject matter.
Barruel demonstrates at length that it was used as a comprehensive,
subtle carrier of propaganda and indoctrination favorable to
subversive strategy.
The third part of Memoirs concerns the Illuminati. Therein Barruel
presents in greater detail than Robison's 'Proofs of a Conspiracy'
the primary source documents captured from the Order. The rapidly
growing influence of the Order in, and outside of, Bavaria is
carefully traced both before and after the French Revolution.
Barruel recounts the European freemasonic conference at Wilhelmsbad
in the summer of 1782, at which Weishaupt's representatives
recruited the leadership of French, German, and other European
Grand Orient freemasonry into the Illuminati, thus bringing those
bodies under the Order's control. Much evidence in Barruel's and
other contemporary sources testifies to this fact. The leaders of
the Illuminist French Grand Orient ran the Jacobin clubs and were
responsible for planning and orchestrating all the major events of
the French Revolution.
In the final part of Memoirs, Barruel reviews the tragic success
of the Illuminati's first experiment in subversive destruction,
the French Revolution of 1789, from which France has never fully
recovered. Barruel's review of this episode, along with historian
Nesta Webster's outstanding 1919 work 'The French Revolution:
A Study in Democracy,' provide a fairly complete history of the
Conspiracy's first attempt at organized subversion.
Sounding the Alarm
It would be hard to overstate the influence Robison's and Barruel's
works had on events in America for several decades after their
publication. In 1799, George Washington read Robison's 'Proofs of
a Conspiracy,' which only reconfirmed his awareness of the danger
to our Republic from Illuminists who tried to bring revolutionary
Jacobinism to our shores. Five years earlier Illuminist agents
Genet and Fauchet had used front organizations ("democratic
societies") to trigger the so-called "Whiskey Rebellion" in
Pennsylvania. Only Washington's public exposure and opposition
with armed troops stopped this early campaign of sedition without
bloodshed.
Regrettably, during Washington's Presidency his Secretary of State
Thomas Jefferson was closely allied to the French agents behind the
Whiskey Rebellion. Perhaps simply deluded by his idealism at this
time, Jefferson unsuccessfully opposed Washington's efforts to stop
the conspirators. Jefferson defended Weishaupt and referred to
Barruel's Memoirs as the "ravings of a Bedlamite."
Other prominent Americans did their best to warn the public of the
Conspiracy's attempts, and they relied on Robison's and Barruel's
works. They included Jedidiah Morse, author of early history and
geography textbooks and the father of Samuel Morse; Yale University
president Timothy Dwight; and Seth Payson, author of 'Proofs of the
Real Existence and Dangerous Tendency of Illuminism' (1802), which
summarized Robison's and Barruel's works and included evidence
from Morse of Illuminist efforts in America.
President Washington and Jedidiah Morse were the outstanding
American "alarmists" of their time, and they were attacked by
their enemies just as members of the John Birch Society and other
"conspiratorialists" are attacked today. Washington's and Morse's
weapon was the truth, and Barruel's Memoirs and Robison's Proofs
provided them with indispensable ammunition.
Interestingly, some historical personalities very close to, and
devoted to, the Illuminist conspiracy valued and relied on the
accuracy of Barruel's Memoirs. Among them was the British poet
Percy Shelley, who not only "treasured" his copy but marveled at
length over its descriptions of the destructiveness he hoped to
see occur. French socialist leader Louis Blanc used Barruel's
evidence as the basis for linking the early communist movement to
its Illuminist origins. Barruel's Memoirs were translated and
published in all major languages.
Of course, both Robison and Barruel were attacked by a few
contemporary friends of the French Revolution, and have been
attacked by orthodox historians ever since. Most of these
criticisms are exercises in clarity of hindsight and are based on
mistakes in translation or factual errors or omissions that always
result when history is written chronologically close to the events.
Anyone who has studied the major 19th and 20th century historians
of the Master Conspiracy, as well as the primary source documents
now available in reprint, can attest to the substantial accuracy
of Robison's and Barruel's works.
Some have noted a distinction between Robison's thesis and
Barruel's. Robison correctly argued that the Illuminati invaded
and captured continental European (not British or American)
Grand Orient free masonic lodges in order to use them as tools for
infiltration and revolution. On the other hand, Barruel argued
that the Illuminati was a natural outgrowth of freemasonry in its
tracing of a pre-Illuminati philosophical plot against altar and
throne involving numerous French freemasons. Once again, students
of the Master Conspiracy today enjoy the benefit of much more data
and a much larger perspective.
Crucial Reading
The new one-volume reprint of Memoirs includes Barruel's complete
text, as well as a fine introduction by Fr. Stanley L. Jaki.
It does not include, however, a postscript written by English
translator Robert Clifford, which was published at the end of
volume four of the 1798 London edition. The postscript, entitled
"Application of Barruel's Memoirs of Jacobinism to the Secret
Societies of Ireland and Great Britain," provides another 50 pages
of evidence concerning the Illuminists' efforts to organize
sedition and rebellion.
This reviewer cannot recommend too highly that any American who
wishes to be well informed in the fight for freedom carefully read
'Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism.' Barruel's
impressive presentation provides thoughtful and penetrating insight
not only into the events he reviews, but also into the strategies
and tactics that the same Master Conspiracy that began as the Order
of the Illuminati has employed ever since. Reading Memoirs will
also provide one with added confirmation that the Master Conspiracy
thesis advanced by British historian Nesta Webster and John Birch
Society founder Robert Welch is overwhelmingly established by both
logic and a physical mountain of evidence.
But don't just take this reviewer's word for it. Consider the
words of British statesman Edmund Burke, author of 'Reflections on
the Revolution in France,' who said of Barruel's Memoirs: "Certain
we are, that no book has appeared since the commencement of our
labours, which was more necessary to be read, and weighed
attentively, by every person of any property, whether hereditary or
commercial; every person holding any rank in society; and every
person who has within him a spark of zeal, either for the honour
of God, or the welfare of mankind."
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