History of the Illuminati Master Conspiracy

In dealing with an emotionally-charged topic such as conspiracy, to avoid confusion it is necessary to begin with a definition of the concept. Conspiracy is a human activity involving more than one person. The parties to this activity are advancing basically the same or common objectives, and are advancing objectives which, by very reasonable standards, are personally harmful, evil or destructive. And, finally, they're doing all this either in secret or without fully advertising in advance what they're planning to do, and certainly not to their potential victims. It is also important to note that the definition says the parties to a conspiracy are doing the same things, or advancing common objectives, but not at all necessarily are they all doing so for the same personal reasons or motivations. So the essential focus of conspiratorial research should be on the actions of individuals, not merely their backgrounds or organizational affiliations. Down through the ages there have been many secret societies and conspiratorial movements desired absolute rule of the world, the overthrow of all existing governments, and the final destruction of all religion.
It is possible to trace the origins and developments of these many movements, such as the early anti-Christian mysticism of the Gnostics; the conspiracy against orthodox Islam and for world power that was founded by Hasan Saba in Persia in 1090 A.D. as the Order of the Assassins; the Catholic Order of the Knights Templar, whose heretical leaders imitated the Assassins' system for the destruction of Christianity. During the thirteenth through seventeenth centuries such groups as the Luciferians, Rosicrucians, Levellers, and many others continued the war against Christianity that had begun in Europe with the Templars. It is even possible to establish that some of these groups were not merely imitating each other, or some older system of belief, and few organizational links can be found. Because much of these earlier movements have left little and very fragmentary evidence, it is not possible to come to the conclusion that any continuing organizational structure existed from 1100 to 1700, or before, which was engaged in a coordinated and centrally controlled plot for world rule and the destruction of monarchical and ecclesiastical power. By the middle of the eighteenth century, remnants and parallels of various destructive movements began to associate under a central group which was to plan and create a continuing organizational structure that would someday rule the world after all existing religions and governments had been destroyed. The philosophical base for this movement was laid in the mid-eighteenth century by Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and other members of the Paris Academy, particularly D'Alembert. The influence Voltaire had over King Frederick of Prussia and the publication of Diderot's Encyclopédie, beginning in 1751, were measures of their early success. The conspirators hoped that the Encyclopédie would become a standard reference source wherein every literate person would seek knowledge on all subjects and thus receive propaganda against civil order and the Christian religion. Its publication caused the influence of this group to grow rapidly. In his correspondence, Voltaire reveals a major concern to be the destruction of all religion (first and foremost, the Catholic Church) and of all monarchs (even ultimately those like Frederick who were sympathetic to the plot) and of all morality derived from religious belief. Out of the resulting chaos, an elite group of aristocratic philosophers would rule the world. Inspired by these radical philosophers and instructed by a mysterious occultist from what is now Denmark, named Kölmer, it was a professor of Canon Law at the University of Ingolstadt (Bavaria, Germany) who established a continuing organizational structure to direct the worldwide attack on religion and monarchy, and which organizational structure would eventually rule the world. His name was Adam Weishaupt and the organization he founded on May 1, 1776, was called the Order of the Illuminati. Weishaupt planned for the Order to maintain publicly the image of a charitable and philanthropic organization. It was this image which attracted so many German educators and Protestant clergymen. When they joined they were convinced that the goal of the Order was the purest form of Christianity, to make of all mankind "one happy and prosperous family." – Adam Weishauspt, 1776. When the novice or Minerval advanced to the rank of Illuminatus Minor (and only those who were ready for this knowledge were allowed to advance), he was told that the only obstacle which lay in the path to the Order's goal of universal happiness was the power being held by the religious and governmental institutions of the world, which were not going to allow such happiness to occur at their expense. The leaders of these institutions, monarchs (or future monarchs) and clergymen, had to be either brought under the control of the Order or destroyed. If such a prospect frightened the new Illuminatus Minor, if he still possessed any sense of traditional morality, he was kept inactive at this level until his ethical concepts were altered. As Weishaupt stated, "These [ruling] powers are despots when they do not conduct themselves by its principles; and it is therefore our duty to surround them with its members, so that the profane may have no access to them. Thus we are able most powerfully to promote its interests. If any person is more disposed to listen to Princes than to the Order, he is not fit for it, and must rise no higher. We must do our utmost to procure the advancement of Illuminati into all important civil offices." Finally, after the candidate had proved his absolute devotion to the secrets of the Order, he was allowed to enter the top-level circle of initiates as an Illuminatus Major, just below the position of Rex, held by Weishaupt.
By now, all conventional idealism had been removed from the candidate and he was told about the real objectives of the Order: rule of the world, to be accomplished after the destruction of all existing governments and religions. He was now required to take an oath which bound his every thought, action, and his fate to the administration of his superiors in the Order. He was even required to learn how to write with both hands so that his handwriting would not remain the same and traceable if any correspondence he wrote were intercepted by civil authorities. His copy of the writings of the Order was kept in a special container in his home which would ignite and destroy its contents if a non-member attempted to open it. An elaborate spy network was set up so that all members would constantly be checking on the loyalty of each other. The secret police of the Order killed anyone who tried to inform the authorities about the conspiracy. This band was known as the "Insinuating Brethren" and had as its insignia an all-seeing eye.
The structure of the Order was pyramidal with Weishaupt at the top and two or three immediate subordinates, each of these had three men under their orders, and each of those three had several men who carried out their dictates, and so on. In their correspondence they were required to use false names for themselves and the names of different ancient cities when they referred to cities where the Order was active. Weishaupt called himself Spartacus; others were Cato, Marius, Brutus, Pythagoras, Socrates and Hannibal. Much of the organizational system of the Jesuits was adopted for the Order. Weishaupt had been raised and educated by the Jesuits and had rebelled against them. He adopted those same institutions to destroy thrones and altars which the Society of Jesus had established to support them. In reward for selling himself totally to the Order, the top-level Illuminatus (and there were not very many of these) was granted all the material and sensual benefits that could possibly be obtained, Weishaupt intended that: "The power of the Order must be turned to the advantage of its members. All must be assisted. They must be preferred to all persons otherwise of equal merit. Money, services, honor, goods and blood must be expended for the fully proved Brethren." Sometimes this policy became a necessity instead of a perverse luxury. It seems in 1780 Spartacus-Weishaupt had gotten his own sister-in-law pregnant and had to eradicate this embarrassment. He planned to procure an abortion, and, of course, admitted all this to a few other Illuminati who understood that the woman's life was quite expendable in order to protect the Conspiracy. Frequently the character of his members was quite an embarrassment to Weishaupt when prospective recruits were being convinced how idealistic the Order was.
How successful was this intricate conspiratorial structure of economic, social, political and cultural elite in Bavaria? Within two years after the founding of the Order, all but two of the professorial chairs at the University of Ingolstadt were held by members of the Order. Before 1789 it is estimated that there were at least two thousand members of the Order in the German-speaking lands. Many of these were ministers, mostly Protestant, lawyers, doctors, and even a few princes. None were members of the lower classes, the agricultural working masses, or the serfs. This would also be true with regard to France by 1789. In just a few years after the Order's creation, Weishaupt could boast: "We have been very successful against the Jesuits, and brought things to such a bearing, that their revenues, such as the Mission, the Golden Alms, the Exercises and the Conversion Box are now under the management of our friends. All the German schools and the Benevolent Society are at last under our control. We have got several zealous members in the courts of justice, and we are able to afford them pay and other good additions. Lately we have got possession of the Bartholomew Institute for Young Clergymen, having secured all its supporters. Through this we shall be able to supply Bavaria with fit priests." The influence of the Order on German education and the German clergy were devastating. By 1800 many German ministers no longer believed the most basic tenets of Christian doctrine. They had been converted to the worship of "reason." The original writings of the Order contained detailed instructions on how hatred and bloodshed might be created between different racial, religious, ethnic, and even sexual groups. The idea of promoting hatred between children and their parents was introduced. Even the kinds of buildings to be burned in urban insurrections were outlined. In short, virtually everything subversive one sees in the twentieth century essentially was planned and written down by Adam Weishaupt over two hundred years ago. An examination of his writings will fully substantiate this claim. It was not until the summer of 1782 (six years after the founding of the Order), that it really began to grow in power and influence outside Bavaria. Having already contemplated the possibility of infiltrating the freemasonic bodies of Western Europe and then taking control of them, Weishaupt and his brilliant disciple, Baron Adolf von Knigge (Philo), at last had their chance. That summer leaders and delegates of the continental European freemasonic bodies were to meet at the town of Wilhelmsbad. Weishaupt's agent, von Knigge, joined them and presented quite an enticing promise of the secrets which the Illuminati had to offer. In response many of the German and French delegates joined, bringing the influence of the Order back to their individual lodges. The two leaders of German freemasonry, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick and Prince Karl of Hesse, joined the Order, thus bringing the whole of German freemasonry under the control of the Illuminati.
The Illuminatus Mirabeau was brought into the order while in Germany and was chosen to bring Weishaupt's system to France, to the lodges of the Amis Reunis, together with Bonneville. Among Mirabeau's recruits were the Duke of Orléans (Philippe Egalité), Brissot, Condorcet, Savalette, Grégoire, Garat, Pétion, Babeuf, Barnave, Sieyes, Saint-Just, Camille Desmoulins, Hébert, Santerre, Danton, Marat, Chenier, and just about every other leader in the impending French Revolution. Other members included Herder, Goethe, Lafayette, and Talleyrand. The charge of actually spreading the doctrines throughout France was give to Bode (Aurelius) and Busch (Bayard). So well did the Illuminati missionaries work that by 1788 every lodge under the French Grand Orient is said to have been indoctrinated with the system of Weishaupt. The Illuminatus Duke of Orléans was the leader of the Grand Orient Lodge in Paris. While key instructions were being sent to the Jacobin Club houses in Paris (which the Illuminati-dominated Grand Orient lodges created and controlled) from the directorate under Weishaupt's command in Bavaria, the Elector of Bavaria uncovered the entire plot. A courier sent from Frankfort to Paris in 1785 was accidentally killed by a bolt of lightning. On his body were found incriminating papers about the Order and the name of Xavier Zwack. His home in Landshut was raided by the Elector's police and his copy of Weishaupt's writings was taken. The Elector publicly outlawed the Order and closed many of the freemasonic lodges known to be under its control. The Elector also sent printed copies of the Order's writings to all the important monarchs in Europe. It was from copies of the Order's writings that Prof. Robison and the Abbé Barruel gathered the information contained in their books. When Weishaupt was banished from Bavaria by his sovereign in 1785, he was received at the court of the Duke Ernest-Louis of Saxe-Gotha who, besides a pension, gave him the title of Honorary Councilor. Several of Weishaupt's principal subordinates, including the Marquis de Constanza and Count Saviola, were banished from Bavaria back to their homelands on the Italian peninsula where they also received pensions.
In 1788, after the suppression of Illuminism in Bavaria, Karl Bahrdt and Baron von Knigge attempted to revive it under the name of the German Union which soon came to control the book selling and publishing business in the German lands, thus assuring that only those books on religion, philosophy and politics which were acceptable to the Order would be available and read by the public. However, it was not until 1810 that the Order was to be revived in what is now Germany, this time under the name of the Tugendbund. In his "Lectures on the French Revolution", Lord Acton observed: "The appalling thing in the French Revolution is not the tumult, but the design. Through all the fire and smoke we perceive the evidence of calculating organization. The managers remain studiously concealed and masked; but there is no doubt about their presence from the first." In France the ten years prior to 1789 had seen the development of greater social and political reform by the monarchy than ever before. The lot of the common people had steadily improved and there was no visible discontent due to economic misery, unlike other states such as Prussia. In other words, there was less excuse in 1789 for a revolution in France than ever before. In order to conduct a first experiment in destruction of monarchy, religion and morality, the Illuminati had artificially to engineer a revolt. The Illuminist Joseph Balsamo or "Cagliostro" engineered the "Diamond Necklace" scheme to bring disgrace to the Church and to an innocent Queen Marie Antoinette. The technique of the manufactured smear was thus introduced. The Duke of Orleans bought up a huge quantity of bread and grain and had some hidden and some sent out of the country. He did this deliberately so that when the starving people demanded something to eat, the Duke's agents could tell them that their food had been taken by the King. By this means, the Illuminists created an artificial famine. "Toward the end of 1793, the new revolutionary Republic found itself faced with hundreds of thousands of working men for whom it could not find employment. The revolutionary leaders embarked upon a fearful new project that was to be copied by tyrants ever after, called 'depopulation'. "The idea was to reduce France's population of twenty-five million down to either eight or sixteen million, depending on which source you believe. Maximilien Robespierre believed depopulation to be 'indispensable'." - William T. Still, New World Order, The siege of the Bastille, July 14, 1789, so fictitiously portrayed by Thomas Carlyle, was an excellent example of how the Illuminati stage-managed the events of the Revolution. Only one out of every thousand people in Paris participated in this "siege." The incident was merely an attempt to obtain guns and ammunition rumored to be in the Bastille so that those loyal Frenchmen who participated could use the weapons to put down a Jacobin disturbance in another part of Paris. Even though the guards at the Bastille did not know the true motive of the mob, only one of the fifteen available cannons was fired at the crowd. After the mob got inside they found only seven inhabitants, all living quite comfortably in this "horrible monstrosity of despotism:" four forgers, two lunatics who were mad before they were imprisoned, and the Comte de Solages, who was incarcerated for "monstrous crimes" at the request of his family. Needless to say, they found none of the instruments of torture about which they had heard.
Similar fully orchestrated contrivances were going on during the March on Versailles, the invasion and siege of the Tuilleries and the massacres of September. The clergy was particularly an object for extermination and unbelievable persecution. The churches were profaned and prostitutes worshiped on their altars. The rule of civil government and authority in Paris dropped to an unprecedented low during the Reign of Terror which began in 1794. It also resulted in many of the Illuminists losing their lives as the mobs were no longer controllable. About the time of his execution in 1794, the Illuminist Robespierre, director of much of the Terror, advocated the policy of deliberately murdering fifteen million Frenchmen so that the remaining food supplies would be adequate. Although this prototype ecological "depopulation" program was not fully carried out, it is estimated that over three hundred thousand Frenchmen died during the Terror, two hundred and ninety-seven thousand of those murdered were members of the middle and the lower agricultural and working classes. As always, the "revolution" only victimized its alleged beneficiaries. Also during this time, the whole calendar was changed because it had religious significance, and the first conscription for military service was put into effect. The Illuminist Gracchus Babeuf and his followers objected to the chaotic course of events and planned an insurrection for 1795. One of their members confessed to the government and the attempt was crushed. Babeuf and others Illuminists hoped that an agent of the Order would seize control of France and militarily conquer the rest of the world, thus establishing the Order's goal of a Universal Republic or New World Order. Although Napoleon Bonaparte was recruited into the Illuminati and prepared for such a role, as his imperial power grew, he set his course rather independently of the Order's objectives. It is well established that both Napoleon's later military defeats and his personal demise were engineered by his former Illuminist comrades. The failure of utilizing Napoleon was a temporary setback for the Conspiracy. To some extent, they were also delayed by the legal rulers of Europe who, in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna, set about the task to restore Europe to what it had been prior to 1789 and Napoleon. They were determined to make sure the Illuminati's conspiracy, about which they were all fully aware, particularly the Austrian statesman Clemens von Metternich, would never again be successful in an attempt to overthrow the entire existing social order. By 1815, however, Weishaupt's ambassadors had begun to spread the Conspiracy into many parts of the world beyond Bavaria and France. Some of these agents were Weishaupt's close subordinates in the Order and others were Illuminists from France, many of whom had been connected with the Babeuf plot. Among those responsible for extending the Illuminati's infiltration and power all over Europe were: Xavier Zwack, Anacharis Clootz, Prince Nubius, Piccolo Tigre, Filippo Michele Buonarroti and his organization after 1809 called the Sublimes Maitres Parfaits (Sublime Perfect Masters) and Louis Auguste Blanqui and the Société des Saisons (Society of the Seasons). The latter two branches of the Illuminati formed the source of the League of the Just which became the Communist League in 1848. Among the subversive and revolutionary nineteenth and early twentieth century movements created by the Illuminati (primarily through European Grand Orient freemasonry, not British and American freemasonry) were the Marxian and "utopian" socialist movements; anarchism; syndicalism; Pan Slavism; Irish, Italian and German "nationalism;" German Imperialism; the Paris Commune; British "New Imperialism;" Fabian Socialism and Leninist Bolshevism. Their projects over subsequent decades included the creation of hatred and violence between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, aimed at breaking Ireland away from the United Kingdom and bringing Ireland under Communist control. This would serve as the model for many futures "anti-Colonialist" movements aimed at British, French and other overseas possessions and territories. The destruction of remaining Catholic influence and the building of Communist power in Mexico from Benito Juarez to the present. In 1815 both the Italian- and German-speaking areas of Europe were loose confederations of small monarchies with strong church influence. The Conspiracy created and controlled "nationalist" or "unification" movements (Italy - Carbonari, Young Italy; Germany - Tugenbund, Burschenschaft) in those areas between 1820 and 1870, both were resulting in the creation of a totalitarian socialist central government which not only destroyed the sovereignty of the prior confederation states but also undermined Catholic and Protestant influences there. These same Illuminist structures would be used in the early twentieth century to create the German National Socialist and Italian Fascist movements. In other parts of Europe which were already nation-states (France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, etc.), the Illuminati staged insurrections and revolts (simultaneously in 1848) aimed at subversion, infiltration and control of those governments. The United States was established as a Constitutional Republic in 1789, the same year the Illuminati's devastation of France began. Illuminists began organizing insurrectionary and secessionist movements to destroy the American Republic as early as 1794. Their efforts were delayed by widespread public exposure. American branches of the Illuminati's European network (Young America and the Knights of the Golden Circle) finally established the secession movements that produced the rebellion ("civil war") of 1861-1865 and their agents assassinated President Abraham Lincoln after he defeated their plans to destroy the Union. Illuminist influence in the governments of Imperial Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Great Britain and the United States combined to trigger a totally unwanted and avoidable world war in 1914 and U.S. entry in 1917, all for the purpose of justifying a world government structure (the unsuccessful League of Nations) after the war. The strategy was repeated again with another world war in 1939 and the framework for a world government structure was created in 1945 as the United Nations.

Annotated Bibliography on the Master Conspiracy

The problem with documenting the Master Conspiracy is certainly no lack of evidence. If anything, the challenge is dealing with such vast, cumbersome and time-consuming research material, and then communicating a concise summary of the research clearly and convincingly. There are mountains of evidence in three standard categories.
1. Primary source material consists of original documents, diaries, records, correspondence and physical evidence from the persons directly involved in the events.
2. Contemporary sources are accounts written about the events close to the time they occurred.
3. Secondary source material, overwhelmingly the easiest to obtain, consist of accounts written much later about the events by persons who are relying solely upon one or more of these three categories of evidence. Therefore, unless a secondary source utilizes verifiable primary or contemporary sources, its content proves little more than the opinion of the author. This is true not only of many so-called "conspiracy" books in recent decades, but also of many mainstream histories and biographies. In this bibliography we have concentrated on primary and contemporary sources, using more available secondary sources only when they contain and cite the original source material. Many of the original sources are available in major national, university and private libraries, as well as some in recent reprint editions. They can also be searched by antiquarian book dealers. I. Order of the Illuminati The original published form of the Order's papers include: Einige Originalschriften des Illuminatenordens (Munich, 1787); Nachtrag von weitern Originalschriften, etc. (Munich, 1787); Die neuesten Arbeiten des Spartacus und Philo in dem Illuminatenorden (Munich, 1794). Published collections of the Illuminati papers include: Richard van Dülmen, ed., Der Geheimbund der Illuminaten (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: frommann-holzboog, 1977) and Henry Coston, La Conjuration des Illuminés (Paris: La Librairie Française, 1979). Two contemporary works which utilized the original documents were:
John Robison, Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, (New York: George Forman, 1798, reprint (Boston: Western Islands, 1967), the first chapter of which is unrelated background. Abbé Augustin Barruel, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, 4 vols., (London: T. Burton, 1797-1798), much more detailed and more persuasively written than Robison. The most important secondary general history is:
Nesta H. Webster, World Revolution (Boston: Small, Maynard and Co., 1921). I much prefer the revised and updated edition published by Britons, Devon, England, 1971, with index and bibliography. This contains the important corrections Webster made prior to her death in 1960, always ignored by those who attempt to discredit her as anti-Semitic. Nesta H. Webster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements (London: Boswell, 1924) very important, but unfortunately the last two chapters were never revised. There are unauthorized paperback reprints of all three. James H. Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men. Origins of the Revolutionary Faith (New York: Basic Books, 1980), see Chapter 4 and references.
II. French Revolution and Napoleon
Two primary sources in which the Illuminist Mirabeau expressed a plan to use French freemasonry to bring about a revolution are: Mystäres de la Conspiration (Paris, 1791), p. 16: "Croquis ou Project de Revolution de Monsieur de Mirabeau." "Les Idées de Mirabeau sur la Franc-Maconnerie" Révolution Française, October, 1882, as translated in: H.C. Bruce Wilson, "Mirabeau's Scheme for the Political Penetration of Freemasonry," Transactions of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, vol. LVII (1944) pp. 138-148. Anonymous [Marquis de Luchet], Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés (Paris, 1789), written in 1788 to warn that the Illuminati intended to use French freemasonry to foment the revolution which occurred after the book was published. Nesta H. Webster, The French Revolution, A Study in Democracy (London: Constable, 1919). Her master work documented with primary sources, it reads like a textbook of subversive strategy as carried out ever since 1789. Nesta H. Webster, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette Before the Revolution (London: Constable, 1936), and Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette During the Revolution (London: Constable, 1937). The evidence that Napoleon was initiated into French lodges controlled by the Illuminati is given in: J. E. S. Tuckett, "Napoleon I. and Freemasonry," Transactions of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, vol. XXVII, 1914. The way Napoleon was used, and disposed of, by the Illuminati is discussed in: [Nodier], Histoire des Sociétés Secrètes de l'Armée (London: Longman, Hurst, 1815). N. Deschamps and Claudio Jannet, Les Sociétés Secrètes et la Société, 3 vols., (Avignon: Fr. Seguin Ainé, 1876), much of which is summarized in English in: Msgr. George F. Dillon, The War of the Antichrist with the Church and Christian Civilization (Dublin: M.H. Gill & Son, 1885). This very important work has been reprinted (with an inaccurate preface) as: Grand Orient Freemasonry Unmasked as the Secret Power Behind Communism (London: Britons, 1965). Ben Weider and Sten Forshufvud, Assassination at St. Helena Revisited (New York: John Wiley, 1995), on evidence of Napoleon's murder. III. Survival and Continuity of the Illuminati, 1789-1848 Benjamin Fabre, Un Initié des Sociétés Secrètes supérieures "Franciscus, Eques A Capite Galeato" 1753-1814, Portrait et Documents inédits Nombreuses reproductions en Photogravure, Preface de Copin-Albancelli (Paris: La Renaissance Française, 1913), containing correspondence between Weishaupt's agents up to 1814. Arthur Lehning, "Buonarroti and His International Secret Societies," International Review of Social History, (1956), I, pp. 112-140. Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The First Professional Revolutionist: Filippo Michele Buonarroti, 1761-1837, (Cambridge: Harvard, 1959). Lucien de la Hodde, The Cradle of Rebellions: A History of the Secret Societies of France (New York: John Bradburn, 1864). Mildred Headings, French Freemasonry and the Third Republic (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1949). Henry Coston, La Republique du Grand Orient (Paris: La Librairie Française, 1976). IV. The Communist Movement: An Illuminist Spawn Carl Wittke, The Utopian Communist: A Biography of Wilhelm Weitling, Nineteenth-Century Reformer (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1950). V. Italian and German Unification Memoirs of the Secret Societies of the South of Italy, Particularly the Carbonari. Translated from the Original Ms. (London: John Murray, 1821). J. Cretineau-Joly, L'Église romaine en face de la Révolution, 2 vols., (Paris: Plon, 1860). Cretineau-July's account is essential on Buonarroti and his followers in Italy. It utilized primary source documents from the Vatican Archives. Carlo Francovich, "Gli Illuminati di Weishaupt e l' idea equalitaria in alcune societa segrete del Risorgimento," Movimento Operaio, (1952) IV, pp. 553-598; Albori Socialisti nel Risorimento, Contributo Allo Studio Delle Società Segrete (1776-1835) (Firenze: Felice Le Monnier, 1962). Leti, La Carboneria, Massoneria nel risorgimento italiano (Genoa, 1925). Dufoureq, Le régime jacobin en Italie, (Paris: Perrier et Cie, 1900). Memoirs of General Pepe, Bentley, London, 1846. Lombard (Vincent) de Langres, History of the German Secret Societies and Their Work in Other Countries, (Paris, 1819). VI. American War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865, Lincoln Assassination and Aftermath The most extensive documentation of long-term Illuminist plotting to destroy the American Republic, from before the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 to the leadership of the secession movements that provoked the war of 1861-65 and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln is: William H. McIlhany, No Civil War At All: Eighty Years of Conspiracy to Destroy the United States, 1790-1870, serialized in Journal of Individualist Studies, Vol. 1, Nos. 1-2 (Winter, Fall, 1992). A few of these sources include: Orville J. Victor, History of American Conspiracies: A Record of Treason, Insurrection, Rebellion, &c. in the United States of America, from 1760 to 1860 (New York: James D. Torrey, Publisher, 1863, reprinted, New York: Arno Press, 1969) An Authentic Exposition of the "K.G.C.", "Knights of the Golden Circle;" or A History of Secession from 1834 to 1861 (Indianapolis, 1861). Felix G. Stidger, ed., Treason History of the Order of Sons of Liberty, Formerly Circle of Honor, Succeeded by Knights of the Golden Circle, Afterward Order of American Knights. The Most Gigantic Treasonable Conspiracy The World Has Ever Known (Chicago: Published by the Author, 1903). John Smith Dye, History of the Plots and Crimes of The Great Conspiracy to Overthrow Liberty in America (Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1969). John A. Logan, The Great Conspiracy: Its Origins and History (New York: A.R. Hart & Co., 1886), pp. 757-779. John W. Headley, Confederate Operations in Canada and New York (New York: Neale, 1906). Ollinger Crenshaw, "The Knights of the Golden Circle: The Career of George Bickley," American Historical Review, vol. LXVII, no. l (October, 1941), pp. 23-50. Roy Sylvan Dunn, "The K.G.C. in Texas, 1860-1861," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, vol. LXX, no. 4 (April, 1967). George Fort Milton, Abraham Lincoln and the Fifth Column (New York: Vanguard Press, 1942). Wood Gray, The Hidden Civil War: The Story of the Copperheads (New York: Viking Press, 1942). James D. Horan, Confederate Agent: A Discovery in History (New York: Crown, 1954). Elbert J. Benton, The Movement for Peace Without a Victory During the Civil War (New York: Da Capo Press, 1972). Izola Forrester, This One Mad Act ... The Unknown Story of John Wilkes Booth and His Family by His Granddaughter (Boston: Hale, Cushman & Flint, 1937). Proves that Booth was acting as an agent of the K.G.C. Theodore Roscoe, The Web of Conspiracy: The Complete Story of the Men Who Murdered Abraham Lincoln (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1959), pp. 3-19. Roscoe's work is largely based on the pioneering research of Otto Eisenschiml.