Note 398 — Chapter III

Forestier is disposed to explain the power of appeal which the new system had for the members of rival Masonic systems on the following grounds: (1) it at least pretended to take more seriously the doctrines of equality and liberty; (2) it emphasized the period of adolescence as the best of all ages for the winning of recruits; (3) it made appreciably less of financial considerations; and (4) it tended to turn attention away from such chimeras as the philosopher’s stone, magic, and knight-templar chivalry, which filled with weak heads and visionary spirits the high grades of most of the other systems. Cf. ibid., p. 340. German Freemasonry was far from being in a wholesome and promising condition when the order of the Illuminati emerged. From its introduction into that country sometime within the second quarter of the eighteenth century, it had developed two general types; viz., English Freemasonry and the French high grades. The former was generally disposed to be content with simple organizations. Its lodges were little more than secret clubs whose members had their signs of recognition and their simple rituals, and whose ideals were represented by the terms fraternity and cooperation. The latter developed an excess of ceremonies and “mysteries”, and thus opened the door for the introduction of impostures of every sort. Visionaries and charlatans flocked to the French lodges, and alchemy and thaumaturgy found in their secret quarters a veritable hot-house for their culture. It is Forestier’s opinion that this activity and influence of dreamers and mountebanks within the Masonic lodges is to be regarded as a reaction from the dreariness and sterility of current rationalism. Cf. ibid., p. 146. However that may be, in the third quarter of the eighteenth century German Freemasonry generally was catering to a popular thirst for mystery, and the Order of the Illuminati was able to draw advantage from that fact. Certainly the very novelty of the new system had much to do with its attractiveness.