Robison's big worry is that women will no longer have the same place in society that they do in his time (18th century) if the Illuminati take over. He frames this as a concern that their place will get worse. Though I'm very puzzled as to how this would be possible. Short of making women literal slaves, there is not much "down" it can get. He's ( Read more... )

We ended last week with Robison's very long and circular fallacy of the appeal to false authority. To recap, he lauds Newton--as he should--but then claims that because Newton believed in god we all should too. In fact, all of the smart people in his time believed in god, so therefore...that belief is what made them smart. It's a long fallacy that ( Read more... )

Now we deal with Newton. Sir Isaac Newton, to be more specific. This is going to be a very interesting section for the reason that I'm a bit familiar with Newton's natural philosophy (re: science). Yes, of course, we are all familiar with his mechanics and gravitational theory. Newton also believed in the aether, committing to the claim that, in ( Read more... )

I've long claimed that Robison's complaint is that the world is changing around him and he wants to blame the Illuminati for it. Finally, he comes to a summary about the Illuminati itself: "The objects, the undoubted objects of this Association, are surely dangerous and detestable; viz. to overturn the present constitutions of the European States, ( Read more... )

This book is trying my patience. I was expecting conspiracy claims here and instead, I'm getting gossip stories about a nerd club that only existed for a brief period. It's frustrating because I was promised this book showed the Illuminati's secrets. I am beginning to think that none of those later conspiracy theorists have actually read it. Aside ( Read more... )

Weishaupt has lost his position, and the Illuminati were exposed for trying to push the idea that church and state ought to be two separate things. So...what do we do now? Obviously, I move forward with the book, but what does Robison do now? The Illuminati are done, and from what he's reported they weren't even that bad. Odd, sure, but there's a ( Read more... )

We are backtracking a bit in this post because of artistic decisions. Last post I had to conclude with the dissolution of the Illuminati by the Bavarian government (not the Vatican as Dan Brown would have it). The post skipped over why that happened. As we stated the Illuminati and all other secret societies had been banned by the monarch because ( Read more... )

We've introduced our villain--Adam Weishaupt--well kind of. He's going to take the conspiracy from all of the new people that thought Masonry could do more than just host rib night on Thursdays. Last post we dug a bit into who Weishaupt was as a person, and now we're going to move forward with the actual conspiracy plot. Finally, we're going to get ( Read more... )

"I AM (sic) now arrived at what I should call the great epoch of Cosmo-politism, the scheme communicated to Baron Knigge by the Marchese di Constanza."

We've had an entire chapter that has failed to illuminate a global conspiracy that seeks to upend the rule of religion and monarchy in Europe. This is depressing for two reasons: A) it's the title ( Read more... )

There's a certain disconnect between the language of today and that of two centuries ago--even though we are both writing in English Robison and I have been educated in different styles. These styles of writing are products of the culture we were brought up in. That's the only salient difference, we are both men, both literate, educated, and both ( Read more... )