Illuminati Membership

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  1. proposed as member to the Order of the Illuminati
  2. handed in test essay for an Illuminati membership
  3. handed in a character table for the Order
  4. [https://database.factgrid.de/query/#SELECT%20%3Fvorgeschlagen_f_r_die_Mitgliedschaft_im_Illuminatenorden%20%3Fvorgeschlagen_f_r_die_Mitgliedschaft_im_IlluminatenordenLabel%20WHERE%20%7B%0A%20%20SERVICE%20wikibase%3Alabel%20%7B%20bd%3AserviceParam%20wikibase%3Alanguage%20%22%5BAUTO_LANGUAGE%5D%2Cen%22.%20%7D%0A%20%20%3Fvorgeschlagen_f_r_die_Mitgliedschaft_im_Illuminatenorden%20wdt%3AP91%20wd%3AQ38780.%0A%7D

I. Minerval Class

  1. Novice [Signed a Revers for the Order of the Illuminati and submitted the two tables]
  2. Minerval
  3. Illuminatus Minor or Minervalis Illuminatus

II. Masonic Class

A. Symbolic Freemasonry

  1. Apprentice
  2. Fellow
  3. Master

B. Scottish Freemasonry

  1. Illuminatus Major or Scottish Novice
  2. Illuminatus Dirigens or Scottish Knight

III. Mysteries Class

A. Lesser Mysteries

  1. Lesser Priest Degree or Presbyter
  2. Lesser Regent Degree or Princeps

B. Greater Mysteries

  1. Magus, Docetist
  2. Rex, Philosophi

  • Serving Brother
  • Censor
  • Decanus [Dean]
  • Prefect
  • Provincial
  • Inspector
  • National Inspector
  • Member of the Areopagus
  • General

Lists of Illuminati members are not exactly rare. Several lists began to circulate after their discovery in 1786; some were intriguingly accurate, and some riddled with allegations. In a system that remains beyond our present grasp, it will be valuable to gather the information and to see where these lists coincide and where they differ, since they too offer interesting network information, and provide insight into who might belong together.

The more interesting lists have remained internal and most of these are comprised today in Volume 10 of the "Swedish Box". All of these have a local focus: Local superiors exchanged juxtapositions of the code names, real names and brief background information, all to facilitate contacts with other regional branches. The problem with these lists are that they are lack definitive dates. The all present snap-shots, without focusing on a final picture.

Lists are one thing, but actual membership is another and comparably gradual thing. New members had to be proposed by accepted members, and Illuminati were usually keen to make such proposals within less than a year. Those proposed would be honoured as friends who deserved this trust, and they then could work as a base within the growing organisation. Members like Knigge generated power within the Order which would be far weaker without their massive recruitment — Knigge claimed he alone had added some 500 members to the Order.

To be proposed was on the other hand not an automatic ticket into the Order. The superiors and provincials tried to obtain background information before they processed new proposals. They would then ask for a trial essay and in the next step for character information, the "Insinuant" had to provide this data in a table under the given headings.

Johann Joachim Christoph Bode, the man whose archive today composes the bulk of extant materials, provincial of the last active province and subordinate of Ernest II of Gotha, was the highest member in the hierarchy after 1785, and mandated the signing of the "Revers", as the definitive entry point. The Revers was an oath of loyalty signed with either their real name or, in other cases, already with the Illuminati Order name.

REVERSE [OBLIGATION. LETTER OF A CANDIDATE.]
I, the undersigned, obligate myself by my honour and my good name, without any secret reservation, never to reveal to anyone, not even to my most intimate friends and relatives, neither by word nor gestures, glances, nor in any other conceivable way, anything of the matters entrusted to me by Herr … concerning my acceptance into a certain secret society, whether I am accepted or not. This even more so as I have been assured prior to my acceptance that in this society nothing is done that is against the state, religion, or good morals. I also promise to immediately return the documents which will be communicated to me for this purpose or any letters I may receive after having made the necessary excerpts in a manner unintelligible to others. All this, as I am an honest man, and intend to remain one.
Signed in … on the … day of … in the year … (L. S.)

Members, however, would not necessarily perceive the signing of the Reverse as their entry point. The Illuminati Friedrich Christian Rudorf recruited in Buttstädt, the last local group we know of, signed their Reverse letters in the summer of 1785 and began sending in their monthly Quibus Licet without hearing from the Order in return until July/August 1786 and they felt confused: Were they actually members? They were waiting for an initiation, a ceremony to be performed in a Minerval Church; Buttstädt never received one and they remained as corresponding members for the remaining two years of the Order.

Fully functional Minerval Churches had monthly meetings, and in Gotha's case right into the summer of 1787. The monthly reports list the local members on a ladder from lowest, Minerval rank to Regent. Membership was here organised within the degree system - and again not quite: Members like Ernest II and Bode had jumped into the highest rank without any ceremonies, simply by being readers of the degree texts as far as they were available.

The FactGrid database under these premises, is tool to provide a nuanced picture. You can filter: Who was proposed? Who was actually invited to sign a Revers? Who was listed as holding a particular degree, and at what particular moment in the brief history of the Order? Who held positions? — You can ask for the external list information and all the insinuations.

Any of these questions will paint an interesting picture; here, however, the database is work in progress. The two questions that can be asked with relatively conclusive data are numbers 1 and 4 in the list above: Who was proposed and, more importantly, who signed a Revers? We are not yet in a position to provide all the references with the precision the database allows; and we are so far not able to offer the interesting lists which present names with brief biographical information, entry dates and entry points. All of this requires people who will make the connections and who will scan the roughly 9,000 entries in order to get the background information. The searches above provide, however a rough picture of the Order. We know of some 1350 people who were proposed and of some 1250 who appear to have signed a Revers.

We will need data experts in order to visualise how the Order grew on the map. We need network analysts to show who proposed more members than others with a greater impact on his personal career. When and where did the Order infiltrate entire lodges? Here we need people who can ask SPARQL questions that provide the more interesting answers in tables and in more complex visulisations of statistics, networks and developments. --Olaf Simons (talk) 09:36, 13 March 2019 (CET)