A Magovernment edict “seems to have been deathblow to the Illuminati in Bavaria.” Weishaupt had fled and documents and internal correspondences, seized in 17, were subsequently published by the government in 1787. Internal rupture and panic over succession preceded its downfall. He was a proponent of Enlightened Despotism and his government banned all secret societies including the Illuminati. In 1777, Karl Theodor became ruler of Bavaria. It attracted literary men such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Johann Gottfried Herder and the reigning dukes of Gotha and Weimar. The order had branches in most European countries: it reportedly had around 2,000 members over the span of ten years. Many influential intellectuals and progressive politicians counted themselves as members, including Ferdinand of Brunswick and the diplomat Xavier von Zwack, the second-in-command of the order. The group has also been called the Bavarian Illuminati and its ideology has been called “Illuminism”. Originally Weishaupt had planned the order to be named the “Perfectibilists”. The goals of the organization included trying to eliminate superstition, prejudice, and the Roman Catholic Church’s domination over government, philosophy, and science trying to reduce oppressive state abuses of power, and trying to support the education and treatment of women as intellectual equals. Members were divided into three main classes, each with several degrees, and many Illuminati chapters drew membership from existing Masonic lodges. The Illuminati’s members took a vow of secrecy and pledged obedience to their superiors. It was made up of freethinkers as an offshoot of the Enlightenment and seems to have been modeled on the Freemasons. 1830), who was the first lay professor of canon law at the University of Ingolstadt.

The secret society of illuminati