Jim Marrs - Rule by Secrecy - The Hidden History that Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freema

The Illuminati philosophy was further spread—although unwittingly—by the Bavarian government which tracked down on the order in 1783. Authorities saw the Illuminati as a direct threat to the established order and outlawed the organization. This action prompted many members to flee Germany, which only spread their philosophies farther. Secret Illuminati orders sprang up in France, Italy, England, and even the new lands of America.

Mason, Founding Father, and former president Thomas Jefferson wrote with admiration, "Weishaupt seems to be an enthusiastic philanthropist. Weishaupt believes that to promote the perfection of the human character was the object of Jesus Christ. [Weishaupt's] precepts are the love of God and love of our neighbor." Either Jefferson lacked knowledge of the inner Illuminati teachings or, as was charged in his time, he himself was a secret member.

Warnings against the Illuminati came from many quarters. Professor Robison, utilizing the order's own internal papers, made it perfectly clear that the organization was created for the "... express purpose of rooting out all the religious establishments and overturning all the existing governments of Europe."

But Weishaupt presented yet another dimension to this goal of political and religious upheaval, one which may provide the basic motivation for all secret societies right up to today: the desire for power. He wrote, "Do yon realise sufficiently what it means to rule—to rule in a secret society?

Not only over the lesser or more important of the populace, but over the best men, over men of all ranks, nations, and religious, to rule without external force, to unite them indissoluby, to breathe one spirit and soul into them, men distributed over all parts of the world?"

Weishaupt achieved such power himself by creating a pyramid chain of command so secure that no one knew he was the head of the Illuminati until Bavarian authorities seized the group's internal papers. In these documents, Weishaupt described his organization, "I have two immediately below me into whom I breathe my whole spirit, and each of these two has again two others, and so on. In this way I can set a thousand men in motion and on fire in the simplest manner, and in this way one must impart orders and operate on politics."

By 1790 the Illuminati appeared to have disbanded, but many members had simply fled to other countries while retaining their loyalty to the group's ideals. The Bavarian government tried to alert the leaders of other nations to what they saw as the danger of the Illuminati. Officials