The Improved System Of The Illuminati With All Its Degrees And Structures

Few thinkers have been more reviled and misunderstood than Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830), the founder of the Bavarian Illuminati. This series of transcriptions and English translations of all his most important works seeks to set the record straight by allowing him to speak for himself. Weishaupt wrote this work, the second (1788) edition of The Improved System of the Illuminati with All Its Degrees and Structures, in response to the initial attacks on the organisation following police raids on the homes of some of its most prominent members. Characteristically dedicated "to the world and the human race", it sets forth an eight-stage system for the instilling of virtue, which owes more to the Society of Jesus than to Freemasonry, while providing an excellent starting point for the study of this interesting yet neglected thinker.