17 January. Vicinity of Rennes-le-Chateau. Marie de Negre d'Ables, lady of Blanchfort, dies on this day. Could this important figure in the mystery of Rennes le Chateau be related to the Marconis de Negre lineage who were responsible for the Disciples of Memphis, Rite of Memphis, Antient and Primitive Rite, etc.??? We are told in a recent work, that this is indeed the case. Marie de Negre's nephew and heir, Armand d'Hautpoul, was connected with Charles Nodier. He was also tutor to the Count de Chambord, whose widow was generous to Berenger Sauniere. Of course, as one wise researcher told us, one must take this PS material with a grain of salt. We are tending towards that direction, we illustrate it as representative of a paradigm which explains this long Serpentine tradition.
15 February. Brunswick. Physically broken and almost blind, Lessing dies, while on visit in Brunswick.
28 May. Hamburg. Meanwhile, the Hamburg Fraternity had grown tired of the Strict Observance, which was itself Moribund. On this date, Jaenisch died, and was succeeded by Dr. von Exter, under whom -- by amalgamation -- the four Lodges became two, and renounced the Templar Rite. Exter, however, was won over by the New or Gold Rosicrucians, and announced himself as a G.M. under this system, with Dresser as Deputy. Through the latter, Hamburg was nearly induced by the Wetzlar brotherhood to join the newly-formed Eclectic Union as a third Directorial Lodge; but the negotiations were interrupted by his death. At this period Aug. Graefe, a former Prov. G. M. of Canada, arrived in Hamburg as the representative in Germany of the Grand Lodge of England. He was a strong opponent of Zinnendorff, although accredited to his Grand Lodge by a patent dated 24 March 1785, and strongly encouraged a return to first principles, holding out hopes of the Provincial Grand Lodge being revived.
August. Prussian historian and councilor of state Christian Wilhelm von Dohm wrote an important and influential pro-Jewish tract entitled Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden (On the Civic Amelioration of the Jews) in which he sought to demonstrate that noble and magnanimous persons were to be found even among that people which had for so long been despised by the Christian world as the enemies of Christ. Nesta Webster states: "During these years a wave of pro-Semitism was produced throughout Europe by Dohm's great book Upon the Civil Amelioration of the Condition of the Jews, written under the influence of Moses Mendelssohn..."
Anacharsis Clootz, the future author of La République Universelle, wrote his pro-Semitic pamphlet called "Letter sur les Juifs."
Magister Pianco publishes the system of degrees of the New and Gold Rosicrucians, Der Rosenkreuzer in seiner Blosse. It is said that it was from this publication that Mackenzie got his idea of the system of the ancient German Rosicrucians that he claimed to be in contact with, and, being in Vienna, he probably was. Magister Pianco was the pseudonym of Johann Heinrich, Baron Ecker von Eckhoffen. Waite says the book was entitled The Rosicrucian Unveiled. Just prior to this Count Hans Heinrich Ecker und Eckhoffen is said to have been expelled from the Rosicrucian Order. In the same year he is said to have founded the Asiatic Brethren.
American Congress meets for the first time.
The Bank of North America founded, modeled after the Bank of England. Never recognized by the majority of states.
Bank of North America folded in 1790.
Massachusetts Medical Society incorporated.
According to Papus, the Rituals of the Elect Priests with other important papers, had been transmitted as follows: 1) to J B Willermoz, a merchant of Lyons, circa 1782. He was one of the successors of Pasqually and Grand Prior of Auvergne in the Strict Observance. 2) From Willermoz to his nephew. 3)From this nephew to his widow. 3) From her to M. Cavernier, an unattached student of occultism. There are other documents held by the descendants of M Jacques Matter, one of the early and most competent biographers of Saint-Martin (other than Waite, of course). By the mediation of M. Elie Steel, a bookseller of Lyons, Papus was placed in communication with Cavernier, and was enabled to copy the principal documents.
January. Nicolai joins the Illuminati. He was a learned bookseller at Berlin. He was at the time hunting out Jesuits. This caught the attention of Knigge, who induced him to join the Order. Also at this time, Feder in Gottingen joined the Order.
17 April. London. Death of Samuel Jacob Hayyim Falk. The epitaph on his grave in the cemetary at Globe Road, Mile End, 'bears witness to his excellencies and orthodoxy': "Here is interred...the aged and honourable man, a great personage who came from the East, an accomplished sage, an adept in Cabbalah....His name was known to the ends of the earth and distant isles, etc." Savalette de Langes writes regarding Falk:
"This Doctor Falk is known to many Germans. He is a very extraordinary man from every point of view. Some people believe him to be the Chief of all the Jews and attribute to purely political schemes all that is marvellous and singular in his life and conduct. He is referred to in a very curious manner, and as a Rose Croix in the Memoirs of the Chevalier de Rampsow (i.e. Rentzov). He has had adventures with the Maréchal de Richelieu, great seeker of the Philosophers' Stone. He had a strange history with the Prince de Rohan Guérnénée and the Chevalier de Luxembourg relating to Louis XV, whose death he foretold. He is almost inaccessible. In all the sects of savants in secret societies he passes as a superior man. He is at present in England. The Baron de Gleichen can give good information about him. Try to get more at Frankfurt."
Other notes regarding Falk:
"Leman, pupil of Falk...
"The Baron de Gleichen....intimately connected with Wecter (Waechter) and Wakenfeldt...He knows Falk....
"The Baron de Waldenfels...is, according to what I know from the Baron de Gleichen, the princes of Darmstadt....and others, the most interesting man for you and me to know. If we made his acquaintance, he could give us the best information on all the most interesting objects of instruction. He knows Falk and Wecter.
"Prince Louis d'Harmstadt...is also a member of the Amis Reunis, 12 and in charge of the Directories. He worked in his youth with a Jew whom he believes to be taught by Falk."
June. Knigge receives J.J.C. Bode, a very zealous Freemason. He was a printer and publisher in Hamburg, and had removed thence to Weimar where he made a business of his Freemasonry, attended conventions, carried on correspondence and supervised the publishing of books on the Craft. All the Freemasons in Northern Germany who were in favor of civil and religious liberty, joined Bode -- including Major Von dem Busche and Leuchseuring, tutor of the princes. They made the dissemination of Eclectic Freemasonry a pretence for spreading Illuminism, which by their actions found partisans and adherents in foreign countries. Bode was the apostle of the New Order in Saxony. Leuchseuring in the Prussian dominions, aided by Nicolai. Feder in the Hanoverian territory and Von dem Busche in the Netherlands.
16 July. Wilhelmsbad. The famous Convent at Wilhelmsbad. The Strict Observance was dissolved at this Convent, and the Rectified Scottish Rite was recognized as Legitimate. Mackenzie states that the Rectified Scottish Rite was adopted in 1782 by the Lodges of the Strict Observance, and afterwards by some of the Ecossais Directories, the last of which was still at work in 1844, at Zurich.
October. Harwich. In a letter written at Harwich at this time, General Rainsford mentions having met with certain Hebrew MSS., at Algiers, and that they related to the Society of Rosicrucians, "which exists at present under another name with the same forms". Waite is convinced that Rainsford was admitted into some form of the Gold RC of 1777, could be. This letter was quoted in Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society, Vol. VIII, p. 125. This is perhaps the missing link Golden Dawn historians should be looking for, because this might in fact be the link between the mysterious papers of "George Cofton" that Cagliostro found in a second hand bookstall in London; and the circle of students formed by a certain Venetian Ambassador in the last century, according to the History of the SRIA by Westcott; and the lineup running from that to Bacstrom / Chazal; to W H White; to Hockley and the early RC in London in the 19th Century, to Mackenzie and Co; to Little, Woodman, and Westcott; to the SRIA on the one hand, to the Golden Dawn on the other; and, finally, to the A.'. A.'. of Aleister Crowley.
It is recorded that Prince Masonry was introduced into Dublin at this time, by foreigners, of whom Pierre Jean Laurent (associated with St. George de l'Observance in London); was one, and Zimmermann was another.
Leipzig. The Rosicrucian Unveiled appears as A Rosicrucian Shining in the Light of Truth; and later, in 1805, as A Full Account of all Secret Orders. About this time Wöllner places himself at the head of a new Gold RC Order.
The Elector of Bavaria issues an edict, forbidding all Secret Associations, and closing the Masonic Lodges. The Lodge "Theodore" continued to meet, notwithstanding.
Saint Martin's next work, Tableau Naturel des Rapports qui existent entre Dieu, l'Homme et Univers. Written at Paris, partly in the Luxembourg at the house of the Marquise de Lusignan and partly in that of the Marquise de la Croix. Publication took place in two parts appearing in one volume dated 1782, at the symbolical Edinburgh, which this time means Paris.
The anonymous publishers state that the manuscript was received from an unknown person, that it had numerous marginal additions in a different hand, that they seemed different from the rest of the work, and that in printing they had been placed in quotation marks to distinguish them from the rest of the text.
After the publication of the Tableau, Saint-Martin remained at Paris, and his intermittent correspondence with Willermoz is at times scarcely intelligible in the absence of the latter's communications. Willermoz evidently was passing through a strenuous period, connected with the Masonic Convention of Wilhelmsbad, and the fate of the Strict Observance. There is one allusion which suggests vaguely the historical transformation of that Rite at Lyons prior to 1778, and the creation thereby of the Knights Beneficent of the Holy City. Also, Saint-Martin was briefly interested in the discovery of Mesmer. A single remark informs us that he would take no part in the Philalethes convention at Paris, scheduled in 1785.
20 Lodges of Philalethes in France and elsewhere.
Prussia. Wöllner obtains the position of political teacher to the prince. He was made a Rosicrucian and became head of the movement in Northern Germany. Through his activities the whole of the Lodge of the 3 Globes in Berlin was won over to the Rose-Croix. He induced the Crown Prince to become a Rose-Croix.
At this time, Gad Bedarride was received into the Rite of Misraim by the Sage Patriarch Ananiah, Grand Egyptian Conservator, who has been identified by the author Gaston Ventura as Cagliostro, which may be the case, but who is to say?
London. It is said that at this time that Cagliostro was in England, elaborating his famous "Egyptian Rite" which he officially founded in 1782. According to his own account, this rite was derived from a manuscript by a certain George Cofton -- whose identity has never been discovered -- which he bought by chance in London. John Yarker, however, is of the opinion that "the Rite of Cagliostro was clearly that of Pasqually," and that if he acquired it from a manuscript in London it would indicate that Pasqually had disciples in that city. A far more probable explanation is that Cagliostro derived his Egyptian masonry from the same source as that on which Pasqually had drawn for his Order of Elected Priests, namely, the Kabbalah, and that it was not from a single manuscript but from an eminent Jewish Kabbalist in London that he took his instructions....
Lyons. It is said that at this time Cagliostro created the Mother Lodge of the Egyptian Rite at Lyons. Cagliostro, it is said, had established the system of Egyptian Freemasonry which consisted of both male and female lodges, the latter being headed by his wife, Serafina. The fruits of Cagliostro's researches into the occult societies of Europe were a body of knowledge known as the Arcana Arcanorum, or A. A. He took this term from the original Rosicrucians of the 17th Century, but his corpus consisted of descriptions of magical practices that stressed "internal alchemy," so it goes. Cagliostro had learned these Tantrik techniques from German Rosicrucian lodges.
According to Oliver,
"a few years [after 1776] the celebrated Count Cagliostro founded at Strasburg his Egyptian Masonry. [His first Lodge was founded at Lyons, under the name of Triumphant Wisdom; but he afterwards extended his scheme, and opened at Paris an androgyne Lodge, which he termed the Mother Lodge of Egyptian Adoptive Masonry. He afterwards went to Courland, and was so fortunate as to number among his dupes the Countess de Meden, who recommended him to the notice of the Empress Catherine. He was, however, finally exposed and denounced.]"
Note: Courland was once part of Latvia. See 1779, Mitau, Latvia, for a reference to Courland.
Oliver:
"In 1782 a new and attractive Order sprang up, consisting of ninety degrees, which was called the Order of Mizraim, or Le rite Orientale. It made its appearance in Italy, and was said to have been brought from Egypt by a learned Egyptian, of the name of Ananiah. [Barruel places the introduction of Egyptian Masonry a little earlier. He says, 'A Jutlant merchant, who had lived some time in Egypt, began, in the year 1771, to overrun Europe, pretending to initiate adepts in the ancient mysteries of Memphis. He stopped some time at Malta, where the only mysteries which he taught were the tenets of Manes; and these he sedulously infused into the minds of the people. These principles began to expand, and the island was already threatened with revolutionary confusion, when the Knights very wisely obliged our modern Illuminee to seek his safety in flight. The famous Count Cagliostro is said to have been a disciple of his, as well as some other adepts in the county of Avignon and Lyons.' -- (Hist. Jac. Vol. III, p.6.)] It was soon transplanted into France, and flourishes there at this day(1850s); although it was subsequently shown to have been invented and brought to maturity by two Jewish Masons, called Bedarride [In one of the degrees, detached portions are introduced of the lecture of the Royal Order of Bruce; and therefore it is utterly impossible that this system could have been imported from Egypt, where the above Order was unknown. Before the French revolution, there were some Chapters of it in France. During the ensuing anarchy, some copies of several of the lectures had found their way into improper hands; and it is probable that the Bedarrides had obtained possession of them; although they had never been initiated into the degree; and thus the fragments of these lectures became incorporated into their new system of Misraic Masonry.], and doubts are entertained whether it be so old as the commencement of the present century. [Thory says it was not known in France till 1814, although he acknowledges that it was previously practised in Italy.]"
Vienna. In 1782 Moses Dobruschka (now Franz Thomas von Schoenfeld) moved to Vienna. He was one of the founders of the "Asiatische Brüeder," a masonic lodge with predominantly Jewish members, and formulated its doctrines. -- Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 6, cols. 143-4. This is the same person who was appointed by Jacob Frank as his successor. This would be the same Asiatic Brothers we have been tracking in our research, and given a year or so on either end of 1782, it would appear that this is perhaps one of the most important historical links to the Authentic Tradition we can find. For not only is he said to have been one of its founders, but that he formulated its doctrines. These doctrines eventually found their way, not really to the SRIA, but to later neo-Gnostic groups, such as the French Gnostic succession, to the Adamites described by Theodore Reuss, to the pre-OTO of Kellner, to the OTO of Reuss, to the Golden Dawn itself. The Frankists, be it remembered, were the lineal descendants of the Shabbeteans, who, in turn, were the lineal descendants of the Lurianic School of Kabbalists at Safed in Palestine. And the Lurianic school can be traced back directly to the Spanish Kabbalists, whose origins are to be found in the Iyyun circle in Gerona, which was directly inspired by the Sages of Lunel and Narbonne, typified by Isaac the Blind of Posquiéres, who, in turn, received the Gnosis from his Fathers, who received it directly from an apparition of Elijah on the Day of Atonement, and from the German Hasidim, who got their teachings from (ultimately) Rabbi Abu Aharon ben Samuel ha-Nasi of Baghdad, where the teachings of the Ophites, the Borborites, the Mandaeans, the Batinis of Abdullah ibn Maymun were common currency among the Illuminati (Maskilim) of their day. This is definitely how the Gnosis was perpetuated through the Dark Ages. It only surfaced by accident in the Christian world in those days, and when it did, it was usually inspired by our Jewish and Isma'ili ancestors in the Tradition.
It is also worth noting that in 1782, other important events occurred which can be seen to be related to the above notice: 1782 is the year Cagliostro allegedly sets up an Egyptian Lodge in Strasbourg. It is also the year in which the Rabbi Falk dies in London, the same Rabbi Falk who was also a Frankist and a Kabbalist. It is also the year of the famous Convent of Wilhelmsbad. And, of course, it is the year in which we see Oliver stating that the Rite of Misraim was founded. At any rate, 1782 is as important a year in the history of the Authentic Tradition, as 1743, 1754-6, as 1776, as 1785-6, as 1814, as 1848, 1862, 1865, 1875, 1886-8, 1891-2, 1904, 1947, 1952, 1955, 1962-4, etc.
Original Great Seal of the United States adopted.
Early 1783. Six persons summoned before the Court of Enquiry, and questioned respecting the Illuminati. Their declarations were published and were very unfavorable. The Elector issued another Edict, forbidding all hidden assemblies; and a third, expressly abolishing the Order of Illuminati. It was followed by a search for papers. Weishaupt was deprived of his professor's chair, and banished. The Italian Marquises, Costanza and Savioli, were banished as well as Zwack, a Counsellor.
It has been contended by some that the Swedenborgian Rite originated in France in 1783, as an offspring of the Illuminati of Avignon. Howe says this is unlikely, and goes on to say that he seems certain that it was founded in America by members of the so-called 'higher- degrees', who were also members of the Swedenborg New Church. From New York it is said to have spread to Canada, and from there it spread to Bristol and to Manchester.
According to Eco, the Marquis Thomé founds the Swedenborg Rite (see previous entry).
Société de l’harmonie : Anton Mesmer, Nicolas Bergasse.
Hamburg. Hamburg was invaded by Eckhoffen with a Lodge of Asiatic Brothers.
January. Weishaupt writes to Zwack, outlining a plan for a system of Confederated Masonic Lodges, to furnish candidates for the Illuminati, and control and destroy the Strict Observance. "The most important affair for us is to establish an Eclectic Masonry..." His great obstacles were the Rose-Croix, the Strict Observance, and the Philalethes.
12 March. Paris. There was a "meeting in the Symbolical Degrees to initiate Francois Frist, a military veteran, aged 103 years(?)."
17 October. Dr. Boileau, claiming to be National Grand Superior of the Lodges and Chapters of the Scots Philosophic Rite in France, instituted the Supreme Tribunal and various suffragan Tribunals. The members bore the title of Grand Inspector Commander, and their duty was to supervise the dogma and supreme administration of the Rite. There is much doubt about the validity of Boileau's patent, as it is impossible to conceive who possessed the right to grant it, but inasmuch as he transferred all his rights of National Grand Superior to the Deputy Grand Master of the system, Gould is inclined to believe that it was manufactured for the occasion. During the existence of this Rite seven Tribunals were erected, but after 1814, those of Antwerp and Brussels of course ceased to be French.
27 December. M. Dubuissonnais presented the Grand Metropolitan Chapter (of the Scots Philosophic Rite) with the sword used by the Count de Clermont when presiding over the Grand Lodge.
Frankfurt. A Grand Lodge established here.
Baring Brothers become premier merchant of the opium trade.
Because of Weishaupts power and arrogance, complaints begin to surface that the Order was subversive of political and religious authority, the schools and the press. In October of 1783, a disgruntled member of the order, Joseph Utzschneider, denounces Wesihaupt to the dutchess Maria Anna of Bavaria, who in turn speaks to Carl Theodore, the Bavarian king.(Trufax)
US President John Hanson dies.(Trufax)
15 February through 26 May. Paris. Convent of Philalethes. Gleichen, Cagliostro, and others present. A concordat concluded between the Philalethes and the Philadelphes which declared that the two systems followed the same object under similar though not identical forms.
27 February. The last authentic record Waite shows, pertaining to the Comte de Saint-Germain, is that of the Church Register of Eckrenforde, which has this entry: "Deceased on February 27th, buried on March 2nd, 1784, the so-called Comte de St. Germain and Weldon - further information not known - privately deposited in this Church.
March. Louis Cardinal de Rohan took as mistress a certain Jeanne de St. Remy de Valois, who had married a soi-distant comte de Lamotte. She persuaded him that she had been received by the queen and enjoyed her favour, and carried on for him a pretended correspondence with the queen, the adventuress duly producing replies to Rohan's notes in the queen's name. The tone of the letters became very warm, and the cardinal, convinced that Marie Antoinette was in love with him, became ardently enamoured of her.
3 April. Eckrenford. The Mayor and Council of this town certified that "his effects have been legally sealed," that nothing had been ascertained as to the existence of a will, and that his creditors were called upon to come forward, "with their claims," on 14 October.
August. A secret meeting took place in a grove in the garden at Versailles, between Rohan and a lady whom the cardinal believed to be the queen herself. Rohan offered her a rose, and she promised him that she would forget the past.
23 November. Savalette de Langes proposes to summon Cagliostro to the Convention together with Mesmer.
The jewellers Boehmer and Bassenge, who had been creating a necklace over the past several decades, also believed in the relations of the countess with the queen, and they resolved to use her to sell their necklace. She agreed, and shortly after Rohan purchased it for 1,600,000 livres, payable in instalments. He said that he was authorized by the queen, and showed the jewellers the conditions of the bargain approved in the handwriting of Marie Antoinette. The necklace was given up. Rohan took it to the countess' house, where a man, in whom Rohan believed he recognized a valet of the queen, came to fetch it. Boehmer and Bassenge, before the sale, in order to be doubly sure, had sent word to the queen of the negotiations in her name. Marie Antoinette allowed the bargain to be concluded, and after she had received a letter of thanks from Boehmer, she burned it. When the time came to pay, the comtesse de Lamotte presented the cardinal's notes; but these were insufficient, and Boehmer complained to the queen, who told him that she had received no necklace and never ordered it.
Saint-Germain allegedly dies while in the service of the landgrave of Hesse, for whom he is completing a factory for making dyes. He is said to have died at Schleswig.
Knigge, after laboring 4 years on behalf of the Illuminati, becomes dissatisfied with the aims of the High Degrees, and breaks off his connection with the Society, and publishes a declaration of what he had done in it.
Weishaupt permitted Bode to modify the principles of the Order, or, to suppress his. Weishaupt considered his own peculiar notions, taught in the higher degrees, as too advanced for Northern Germany. The Order soon embraced all classes, and its members consisted at the same time of the most distinguished men, the higher ranks of life, and the students of the universities, among whom it took its origin. In Bavaria, too, many of its members rejected every noble principle and all religion. Dissensions soon arose, between the Bavarians and the Masons whom Knigge gained for the Order; between Knigge and Weishaupt and, the result was a complete separation of the North German Party, including those in Prussia.
Bruenn. In 1784, Frank's financial resources failed temporarily and he found himself in dire straits, but his situation improved. During his stay in Bruenn, his teachings, sayings, recollections and tales were taken down by his chief associates.
Due to information leaks, the Jesuits urged the Elector of Bavaria to act against the Order. In June, a general Ordinance was issued prohibiting all Secret Societies in Bavaria...
Bavarian Illuminati (Weishaupt) membership is 3000, which effectively knocks out competition from the Strict Observance and Rosicrucian orders. Knigge withdraws from Wesihaupts Order of the Illuminati.
US President Lee in office.
In Bavaria, king Carl Theodore outlaws secret societies (June 1784).
Count Grabianka, chief of the Avignon Illuminés, had actually relinquished his small daughter to his Masonic superior, before he visited the Swedenborgians in London in l785-86 (and again in l796). Accusations about erotic ceremonies at Avignon suggest that these revolutionary sexual theories were not only preached but practised. Even Nordenskjöld was distressed when the Avignon society decided that Swedenborg's Conjugial Love was not divinely inspired and adopted instead the kind of free-love agenda promulgated by the "Asiatic Brethren," a Masonic rite developed by Shabbetean Jews and Kabbalistic Christians. At this time, emissaries from the "Asiatics" were in London, and several Swedenborgians collected their writings. Grabianka evidently learned of the "Asiatics" through his contacts with certain Polish Jews, whose Shabbetean beliefs fueled the Count's nationalistic and Zionistic fantasies. For background on the "Asiatic Brethren," see Christopher McIntosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason (Leiden: E.J. Brill, l992), 161-77; Gershom Scholem, Du Frankism au Jacobinisme (Paris: Le Seul, Gallimard, l981). Lambert de Lintot, General Charles Rainsford, and Ebenezer Sibly (all Swedenborgian Masons) collected and translated publications about the "Asiatics," while Prince Carl of Hesse-Cassel (a Swedenborgian Mason and Danish chief of the "Asiatics") was in contact with the Swedenborg societies in London and Stockholm.
10 February. Summons to appear at the Philalethes Convention sent to Cagliostro, who agrees to attend. Later, he changes his mind; desires all members of the Convention should adopt the Constitutions of the Egyptian Rite and be initiated at the Mother Lodge at Lyons. He requires that the archives of the Philalethes be burnt. Baron von Gleichen deputed to see him.
(Eco): Cagliostro founds the Memphis Rite, which later becomes the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraim.
15 February. Lodge of the Philalethes, Convention. Many important people present.
"On February 15, 1785, a further congress took place in Paris, convened this time by the Philalethes, at which the Illuminati Bode (alias Amelius) and the Baron de Busche (alias Bayard) were present, also -- it has been stated -- the 'magician' Cagliostro, the magnetiser Mesmer, the Cabalist Duchanteau, and of course the leaders of the Philalethes, Savalette de Langes, who was elected President, the Marquis de Chefdebien, and a number of German members of the same Order. This congress led to no very practical results." -- Webster.
March and August. Meetings of Illuminati and Freemasons prohibited by name in Bavaria. Edict of 1st March was against the Freemasons.
April. Saint-Martin evidently received good news from Willermoz, that on the 29th he expressed his rapture on learning that the sun has risen on Israel; he affirms that the man so chosen is for him henceforward a man of God whom he will venerate as the anointed one of the Saviour; he entreats him to pardon whatever wrongs he may be thought to have committed against him on his own part; he ascribes all differences which may have arisen between them to his own ignorance; condemns himself for his temerity in having published anything; asks Willermoz to intercede for him with something which appears to be called "La Chose", whose place he has taken unasked; he prays to be enlightened on the faults of his own heart the errors of his mind and of his works; he places himself under his orders and terms him his master, holy friend, father in God and Christ Jesus. Could this be referring to Jacob Frank? No way of telling for sure, but...
According to Papus, the archives in his possession showed that after prolongued failure Willermoz reached the end of his labours, that he obtained "phenomena of the highest importance", which culminated in 1785, or "thirteen years after the death of his initiator Martines de Pasqually." More explicitly, the Being who is said to be described by Willermoz as "the Unknown Agent charged with the work of initiation" otherwise, perhaps, "La Chose", materialized at Lyons and gave instructions which were reduced to writing.
6 April. Lodge of Triumphant Wisdom addresses the Philalethes Convention with a letter.
12 April. Philalethes Convention replies, refusing Cagliostro's demands.
13 April. Cagliostro replies to Philalethes, 'we have offered you Truth and you have disdained it,' etc.
13 May. Letter of Saint-Martin. Indicates he had been consoled by Willermoz. He waits now on a summons to Lyons, that he may see and hear for himself.
30 June. Saint Martin has made preparations for the journey to Lyons and is looking to greet Willermoz soon after the letter under that date. Fifteen months later, Saint-Martin is at Paris, bewailing his imprudence in having spoken too freely to certain brethren and thus prejudiced his "enjoyments" of his friend.
July. En Route to Silesia. An evangelist preacher and Illuminatus named Lanze had been sent in July 1785 as an emissary of the Illuminati to Silesia, but on his journey he was struck down by lightning. The instructions of the Order were found on him, and as a result its intrigues were conclusively revealed to the Government of Bavaria. A searching enquiry followed, the houses of Zwack and Bassus were raided, and it was then that the documents and other incriminating evidence were seized and made public under the name of The Original Writings of the Order of the Illuminati (1787). But before this the evidence of four ex-Illuminati, professors of Munich, was published in two separate volumes.
20 July. Paris. Scots Philosophic Rite refused to recognize Cagliostro's Egyptian Rite.
15 August. Paris. Assumption Day, when the whole court was awaiting the king and queen in order to go to the chapel, the cardinal de Rohan, who was preparing to officiate, was arrested and taken to the Bastille. The police also arrested Mme. de Lamotte and some minor accomplices (Cagliostro???)
This was, according to Nesta Webster, the first act of the revolutionary drama. "The famous 'Affair of the Necklace' can never be understood in the pages of official history: only an examination of the mechanism provided by the secret societies can explain that extraordinary episode which, in the opinion of Napoleon, contributed more than any other cause to the explosion of 1789. In its double attack on Church and Monarchy, the Affair of the Necklace fulfilled the purpose of both Frederick the Great and of the Illuminati. Cagliostro, we know, received both money and instructions from the Order for carrying out the plot, and after it had ended in his own and the Cardinal de Rohan's exoneration and exile, we find him embarking on fresh secret-society work in London..." According to Eco's chronology, the Affair of the Diamond Necklace was orchestrated by Cagliostro. Dumas describes it as a Masonic plot to discredit the Monarchy.
9 September. A formal accusation against the Illuminati published by Utzschneider, Priest Cosandey and Professor Grunberger, with a long list of names of alleged members, dreadful charges.... According to Schlosser, "the views of the Illuminati, in despite of the abuses which resulted from the Secret Constitution of the Order, had contributed most materially to introduce and diffuse light into the darkness of the Middle Ages which prevailed in the benighted countries of Germany." Count Seinsheim, Montgelas, Charles Von Dalberg, and Ernest II, Duke of Gotha, were members.
London. Lintot's order had close ties with Swedish Masonry which were reinforced by the initiation of numbers of Swedish ship captains "in London lodges, including the Jewish." These Kabbalistic rites were in turn exported to India and China by initiated captains sailing for the Swedish East India Company, who opened lodges in their ports of call. The merging of Jewish and Asiatic rituals would thus have significant earthly as well as heavenly relevance. The Royal Order of Heredom survived through the l790's, when Swedish and Swedenborgian Masons in London continued to join it.
Academy of the Illuminati of Avignon revived. (1789 according to OccTheoc.)
Franz Anton Mesmer received into the Primitive Rite of Free and Accepted Masons at this time, due to their eagerness to discover Mesmer's secrets of Magnetism.
Hamburg. F. L. Schroeder returns from Vienna, his influence soon making itself felt throughout the Hamburg Craft.
Altona. "Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer," published. Some sources give 1789. This seminal work was reprinted in 1888 by Franz Hartmann.
Mesmer, F. A. Report of Dr. Benjamin Franklin and other commissions charged by the King of France with the examination of animal magnetism, as now practiced at Paris.
Prussia. From 1785 on, complaints of bad faith grew louder, and invaded the public prints. Schroder rode post from St. Petersburg to Wollner in Berlin, in order to procure some elixir for the Rosicrucian Schwarz, who was "sick unto death." After much delay he obtained a precious bottle and posted back. Schwarz was dead without the medicine, but some animals to which it was administered died from its effects, and an analysis proved that the smallest dose must inevitably be fatal to human life. The results were published by the indignant Schroder, and helped to swell the storm of general dissatisfaction. The leaders published a circular advising all brothers to wait for the next general meeting of 1787 -- but that never took place -- for the "Unknown Fathers," seeing the beginning of the end, ordered a general silanum or cession of work, which immediately took effect in Southern Germany. Frederick William II, who had ascended the throne, and Wollner, contrived to prop up the decaying edifice for a time in the Prussian states, but it gradually succumbed to destiny, and disappeared entirely after the king's death in 1797.
Bro. Col. W. J. B. McLeod Moore, of Canada, a past G. M. of Templars, had a theory, which he had received from an aged Danish Physician, and which included Templars and Masons. He asserts that the Benedictines, who date circa 600 AD, practiced the sacred mysteries of the Arcane Discipline of the Alexandrian Church. The aged Dane informed him that the King of Denmark was head of a secret non-Masonic society in the 18th Century, of which he himself was a member in 1785. It had seven degrees. When the United Orders of St. John and the Temple were suppressed in the 16th Century, and Torphican and the Knights dissolved, these fugitives carried their mysteries to Denmark, and that he belonged to the body at Copenhagen 60 years previously. These sacred Mysteries represented the Fall of Man; his Redemption by sacrifice; and the Resurrection. They saw Christ by Faith and represented his doctrine by symbols, they taught that none can claim the right of eternal life beyond the grave, but those that "believe on Him that liveth, and was dead, and is now live for evermore." The object, the end, the result of the great speculations of antiquity, was the ultimate annihilation of evil, and the restoration of man to his first state by a Redeemer, a Master, a Christus, the Incarnate Word..
General Rainsford was received into a Rosicrucian Society around this time. Waite asserts that it was in London. Also, that in 1785 he was attached to something of the same kind then working in Paris, and made use of its cipher on one occasion. That the English society is referred to under the denomination R.'. Cru.'. D... Waite also goes on to mention that it was probably working the scheme of Degrees adopted at the German reformation of 1777. This is probably the group responsible for the Initiation of White and other early RCs in England, the nucleus that formed the basis for the Rosicrucian Groups that emerged in England later in the 19th Century.
According to Clavel, the Initiated Brothers of Asia were in trouble with the police at this time. Year in which Lambert de Lintot is said to have made his famous engravings.
Paris. Even though dead for a year, the Comte de Saint-Germain begins to make his posthumous travels. According to the Protest-ant anti-Mason Eckert, Saint-Germain was invited to attend the Masonic Congress at Paris in 1785, and that of Wilhelmsbad in February of the same year. This would be the beginning of a long series of sightings, the original Elvis, in that regard at least.
Included are: at the execution of Marie Antoinette, at the coming of the 18th Brumaire, on the day after the death of the Duc d'Enghien, in the month of January 1813; and on the eve of the murder of the Duc de Berri, in 1820. So on and so forth. These sightings would lead to the prattle dished out by the Theosophical Society and all the nonsensical streams of gibberish to come out by groups influenced by this same line of tainted thinking, ultimately turning him into an Ascended Master, who appears in Montana. Oy Vey!
He is said to have attended his own funeral; he was at the court of Versailles in 1743; etc.
Carl Friedrich Bahrdt (1741-1792), established the German Union of 22, as a perpetuation of the suppressed Illuminati. This he did at Halle, under the protection of the Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg. Consisted of Six Degrees. The Rite was dissolved in 1789 when it was discovered they weren't working with a charter.
Carl Theodore issues another edict specifically outlawing Weishaupt's Order of Illuminati, as well as providing rewards for information on them. Weishaupt flees to a neighboring province, as does Count Massenhausen.
Columbus Lodge of Order of Illuminati established in New York City. Press gives criticism to US President John Hanson.
Watt introduces steam engine in England.
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All Original Material (i.e., arrangement and interpretation),Copyright 1998-2001 e.v., Jonathan Sellers. All Rights Reserved.