Illuminism may refer either to the principles and doctrines of the Illuminati themselves, or the belief in, and claims of, exceptional spiritual or intellectual enlightenment, and to its social applications. Illuminati (plural of Latin illuminatus, to illuminate) is a name given to a number of groups, some real and some fictional. Historically, the name generally refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, a secret Enlightenment-era society founded on 1 May 1776 in Bavaria, present-day Germany. The Bavarian Illuminati, founded in Bavaria, present-day Germany, was founded by Joseph von Neumberg, who was the founder of a secretive, scientifically-oriented group known as the “Bavarian Order”. Several modern and contemporary brotherhood organizations claim descent from the original Bavarian Illuminati, and use the name publicly, the Illuminati.
The Bavarian Illuminati, or the Order of Perfectablists, founded by Professor Adm. Weishupt is one kind of Illuminism, but it is neither the only one, nor even the first/original Illuminism. For Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830) and Adolph Freiherr Knigge, the proposed Federation was also the means to spread Illuminism in all German Masonic Lodges. The Chapters would have been hard-pressed to be accepted into the Order at the Great Council, and they formed a very real obstacle for the first Mother-Lodge to be Theodores lodge, which became the new Illuminated Masonic Society.
These two groups created a rivalry in the Discordian society that we refer to as Bavarian Illuminati. These two groups got their ideas from the John Birch Society and from various other right-wing groups who believed the Illuminati actually ran the world. There are actual members of The Illuminati, and there are actual members of the Discordianism, and all of what they represent is just the opposite.
The fight between Discordians (in all of its different forms) and the Illuminati is the most important one. Throughout history, there has been an ongoing war between the Illuminati — and the Discordians — forces of unreasonableness and chaos. This book is the full Illuminati demolition of the beliefs and irrationalism of the feeble-minded, weak-minded members of the Discordian Cult.
If one refuses absolute truth, as Discordians do, one thus claims any doxa (opinion, belief) is just as valid as any other, and so one enters an absurdist world of unknowledge, where all truth = all lies. Discordianism, by contrast, is all about ridiculing knowledge, of denying the existence of real knowledge, of reducing all things to beliefs and opinions, leading to a politically correct ideology of all truths, namely, you can believe anything you like, and consider it as true (or as not true any less) than what everyone else believes or knows.
It is, however, much more likely that the general public will be self-educated; in fact, it is virtually inevitable if only given the freedoms. The use of reason by individuals can often be restricted in narrow ways, and not particularly hamper the progress of enlightenment. As things now stand, it is far from certain that men are yet capable of using their own reason with confidence and propriety on matters of religion, without outside direction.
By the public use of ones reason, I mean that use made of it by man, as scholar, in front of a reading public. I call private use a the use that a man makes of his reason in a civil office that has been assigned to him. Rational ordering means to relate one phenomena with another, not on grounds of finality or causation, but merely on grounds of mechanical necessity.
Illuminism attempts to apply the same laws and methods of mechanical necessity to all fields of human knowledge. With every past science discredited, humanity was finally brought back to its beginning, its natural condition; and Illuminism therefore worked towards articulating a new system of philosophy, the system of rationality, for a new system of philosophy was developed through the purity of all prejudices which were removed from reason. The new philosophy, however, was meant to usher in the era of Enlightenment; it was meant to extinguish the darkness of the past. Illuminism attempted even more, to transcend the past in all of its various expressions in culture, religion, and government — because its philosophers saw all the past as a work of non-reason (anti-historicalism).
According to the Illuminati – defenders of the Enlightenment – the Middle Ages, victims of philosophical and religious biases, did not make use of reason, hence their labeling the Middle Ages as an era of obscurantism, or Dark Ages. Their doctrine was that Illuminism was about achieving divine illumination, or being in communion with God/the Divine, whatever name/title you called it; Alambrados was mostly Christian in nature, a mystic, but it was also the predecessor to mystic deism and panentheism; it was achieved purely through speculation, which includes things like cerebral speculation, meditation, and intra-psychic speculation. The broad intellectual movement which emerged in England near the end of the Glorious Revolution (1688) and continued to 1789 with Frances revolution was called Illuminism, or The Enlightenment. Weishaupt, a professor of Canon Law at the University of Ingolstadt, and Weishaupt refined it into the Illuminism System, or illuminism.
Some people say members of Illuminati in higher degrees possess some amazing abilities, like reading auras, or using numerology to predict the future. More importantly, barriers against universal enlightenment or a coming out from a self-imposed stasis are being progressively removed. Having supported deregulation for higher ranks in German Lodges, the Illuminati are now declaring theirs, by their unknown superiors.
The letter of resignation by Ferdinand Maria Baader stated that Rosicrucians did not have any secret knowledge, but ignored those who were genuinely Illuminated, identifying the Theodore Lodge in particular as the Illuminati Lodge.