200 years. Weishaupt was wise enough to see that “reason” ofrnthe sort proposed by the Masonic lodges of strict observancernwould never bring about social order. As the chaos in thosernlodges proved, reason often led to conflicting ideas about whichrnprogram to follow. The Illuminist system took the law into itsrnown hands and molded its members’ behavior as its leaders sawrnfit. As in the case of Comte’s sociology, the old Church was replacedrnwith a new one. The old order, based on nature and traditionrnand revelation, was replaced by a new totalitarian orderrnbased on the will of those in power. The breakup of the Illuminatirnand the defection of Knigge, who found the emerging orderrnmore intolerable than the one he was trying to destroy,rnshowed that this new order was not without its problems, butrnfaith in ever-more-effective technologies of control, based onrnnewer technologies of communication, would push this disillusionmentrnfurther and further into the future.rnThe lUuminati were a concrete manifestation of Francis Bacon’srndictum that knowledge is power. In this instance, knowledgernof the inner life of the adept translates into power overrnhim. Extrapolated to a state functioning according to Illuministrnprinciples, this knowledge translated into political power. Inrnthe control of these Maschinenmenschen, both Weishaupt andrnKnigge caught sight of a machine-state that could create orderrnthrough invisible control of its citizens.rnWhile Weishaupt and Knigge failed to implement that vision,rnthe publication of their papers ensured that othersrnwould at least entertain its ultimate fulfillment. Once releasedrninto the intellectual ether, the vision of machine people in arnmachine state controlled by Jesuit-like scientific rulers capturedrnthe imagination of generations to come, either as Utopia (in thernthinking of such people as Auguste Comte) or dystopia (in, forrnexample, the work of Aldous Huxley and Fritz Lang, whose filmrnMetropolis seemed to be Weishaupt’s vision come to life). LikernGramsci, Weishaupt proposed a cultural revolution instead of arnpolitical one. He wanted to “surround the mighty of this earth”rnwith a legion of men who would run his schools, churches,rnacademies, bookstores, and governments —in short, a cadre ofrnrevoluHonaries who would influence every instance of polificalrnand social power and educate the society- to Enlightenmentrnideas. Van Duelmen nofices the connecfion between the culturalrnrevolution which Weishaupt proposed and the “marchrnthrough the institutions” which the 68ers brought about lessrnthan 200 years later. The rise of communism obscured the factrnthat, for the first hundred years or so following the French Revolution,rnIlluminism was synonymous with revolution, both inrntheory and in practice.rnLike so many who would come after him, Weishaupt soughtrnto create a technology of control to take the place of self-control,rnwhich he lacked. At least part of the outrage which surroundedrnthe publication of the Illuminist manuscripts arose from the disparityrnbetween the morality which Weishaupt preached andrnthe depravity of his actions. Weishaupt had an affair with his sister-rnin-law; when she became pregnant, he tried to cover up hisrninvolvement by procuring an abortion. This behavior ledrnPrince Karl Theodore of Bavaria to denounce Weishaupt as arn”villain, perpetrator of incest, child murderer, seducer of thernpeople, and leader of a conspiracy which endangered both religionrnand the state.” The prince was right in seeing Weishauptrnas representing the antithesis of the Christian state. Thernessence of this antithesis was the idea of control, the desire torndominate rather than serve, which St. Augustine termed “libidorndominandi.” If Christianity held loving service as its ideal, itsrnrevolutionary antithesis could only be domination. The mostrneffective means to achieve that domination would be workedrnout in detail over the next 200 years. Weishaupt, however,rnmade a significant first step by defining the terms. The battle forrnliberation would be both semantic and a battle for control of thernsoul; control would remain the essence of revolutionary practice,rnno matter how much the term “freedom” was used to justifyrnits opposite.rnAny objective analysis of the social engineering that has beenrnthe hallmark of American culture —from the “melting potrnpageants” of World War I through Alan Dershowitz waving thernbloody underwear of the sexual revolution in his defense ofrnPresident Clinton —would have to conclude that AdamrnWeishaupt succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in creating arnsystem of control based on the manipulation of human passion.rnEver-thing from Watson’s behaviorism to advertising to sex educationrnto pornography on the internet is part of that system,rnand it is all justified by appealing to the Whig idea of freedom.rnThe real purpose is control, but it was all the work of humanrnhands and, therefore, of people in rooms somewhere. Thosernwho used social engineering during this century to overthrowrnthe political order in this country and to destabilize the moralrnorder upon which it was based were conspirators, and thernessence of their conspiracy—controlling people through thernmanipulation of their passions—goes back to the grand conspiracyrnconceived by Adam Weishaupt.rnWlien St. Augustine wrote the City of God at the dawn of thernChristian era and the end of classical antiquit’, he joined thernnotion of freedom then regnant among the ancients with thernnew notion of moral probity expressed in Christianity. “Arnman,” he wrote, “has as many masters as he has vices.” Forrnroughly 1,300 years, that sentence was taken as a warning. Inrnthe context of the Enlightenment, however, it could also bernseen as a recipe for political control, which is precisely how itrnwas implemented. St. Augustine delineated the two options:rnthe Cit)’ of God, which is based on love of God to the extinctionrnof self; and the Cit)’ of Man, which is based on love of self evenrnto the point of desiring the extinction of God. If the City of Godrnis based on love and service, the Cit’ of Man is based on theirrnopposite, namely, libido dominandi, the desire to dominaternone’s fellow man for personal benefit. Once the Enlightenmentrndecreed war on Christianity, the program of libido dominandirnbecame inevitable. No one has to conspire to get peoplernto act on their baser passions, but that does not change the factrnthat a conspiracy did form to bring about that end. It is with usrnstill.rnMost people know this intuitively, even though — left to theirrnown devices—they will come up with a cockamamie theory ofrnthe sort proposed by Veronica Leuken, the phony “seer” of thernphony Bayside, New York, apparition, who informed the credulousrnthat all of the disconcerting changes in the CatholicrnChurch over the past 3 5 years were traceable to the fact that thernreal Pope Paul VI had been kidnapped and an impostor (look atrnhis ears) had been placed on the Chair of Peter. While VeronicarnLeuken’s explanation of everything may be wacko, it is notrnas wacko as the anti-conspiracy theories of people such as thernprofessor from Cincinnati. It reminds me a bit of the man who,rnwhen he had e’olution explained to him, opined that it was easierrnto believe in God. When it comes to history, it is easier to believernthat it was people in a room somewhere.rnMARCH 2001/19rnrnrn