“Lang” or “Lanz”: Myths about the “Myths”
Saturday, November 15th, 2008 | Illuminati myths | 3 Comments
by Terry Melanson (15/11/2008)
So, I’m browsing through the results of a keyword-search (targeting blogs) that I had previously saved as an RSS feed in Google Reader - “Illuminati.” Usually the results point to sites that abuse the term as a mere descriptor for an overarching, all-powerful monolithic conspiracy. However, once in a while, I occasionally come across at least an attempt not to knowingly butcher the historical record.
The November 12th post at the English section of Illuminaten.org is one such example. But as I started reading “The Bavarian Illuminati: several myths revealed,” it became quite clear that the post is, in fact - word for word - an abridged re-posting of “A Bavarian Illuminati Primer.”
Once I got to the part about Lanz and Lang, I knew for sure.
Here’s what Mason Trevor W. McKeown thinks is the myth/truth:
As an example of the mythology that surrounds the history of the Illuminati, note that Barruel claimed that Lanz, an Illuminati courier and apostate priest, was struck by lightning, thus revealing Weishaupt’s papers to the authorities, but this does not appear to be substantiated. This error was widely reprinted and enlarged on by subsequent anti-masons whose lack of research and disdain for historical accuracy has lead them to confuse Johann Jakob Lanz (d.1785), a non-Illuminati secular priest in Erding, and friend of Weishaupt, with Franz Georg Lang, a court advisor in Eichstätt who was active in the Illuminati under the name Tamerlan.
Barruel mistakenly translated “weltpriester”, or secular priest, as apostate priest and subsequent writers such as Webster and Miller have repeated this error. Eckert renamed Weishaupt’s friend as Lanze and had him struck by lightning while carrying dispatches in Silesia. Miller cited Eckert but renamed Lanz as Jacob Lang and placed the lightning strike in Ratisbon. This is a minor detail in the history but it demonstrates the lack of accuracy often displayed by detractors of the Illuminati.
As nobody has challenged him on these assertions - not even a German site who should know better - I’ll reiterate and add additional information to what I had written back in August 2005. Mr. McKeown is guilty of the same thing he accuses others of: “lack of research and disdain for historical accuracy.”
Illuminati Sightseeing: Karl and St. Germain at Louisenlund
Monday, November 10th, 2008 | Illuminati Sightseeing | 1 Comment
by Terry Melanson (10/11/2008)
Left: a rare photograph of Louisenlund Tower, while it still existed; Right: an idealized painting of it as it must have looked when Saint-Germain and Landgrave Karl were indulging in alchemical experiments. (Click for a larger view, and a Lightbox gallery)
The estate of (Illuminatus) Landgrave Karl von Hessen-Kassel (1744-1836) was an occult-masonic initiatory retreat. The world’s foremost expert on the 18th-Century Golden and Rosy Cross, Dr. Christopher McIntosh:
The head of the Asiatic Brethren in the 1780s and 1790s was the Landgrave Carl von Hessen-Kassel, one of the most fascinating and influential figures at the time in the world of Masonry, Rosicrucianism and hermetic studies. He not only belonged to innumerable orders and rites, but he was a practicing alchemist and was a friend of the mysterious French alchemist, the Comte de St. Germain, whom he harbored during the last years of St. Germain’s life on his estate Louisenlund in what is now Schleswig-Holstein, which he turned into a great center of Masonic and esoteric activity. The park at Louisenlund (about an hour’s drive northwest of Kiel) was laid out in the form of an initiatic journey that involved the candidate passing through a dense wood finding his way through a labyrinth and encountering various alchemical and allegorical images along the way.
In the park was an alchemist’s tower with a laboratory and a room where Masonic rituals were conducted. There was also a pond with a secret grotto concealed behind a waterfall, in which the most solemn rituals were held. Over the years, unfortunately, most of these symbolic features have disappeared. All that remains of the alchemist’s tower, for example, is this Egyptian stone doorway which was moved to a different position, and cemented into the wall of a stable building where it stands completely out of context. Today this property belongs to a private school.
Illuminati Sightseeing: Masonic Congress of Wilhelmsbad
Saturday, November 8th, 2008 | Freemasonry, Illuminati Sightseeing | 1 Comment
by Terry Melanson (08/11/2008)
Painted by Anton Wilhelm Tischbein (1730-1804)
The above was painted by Anton Wilhelm Tischbein (1730-1804) in 1783. The scene depicts the grounds of the spa - the ruined castle, the kitchen and the carousel in the background. In the foreground (right) is the hereditary prince William IX of Hesse-Kassel (1743-1821) with six year-old son William. William IX, at the time, was the ruler of the principality of Hanau, subsequently becoming William IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel - after his father Frederick II, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel had died in 1785 - and then William I, Elector of Hesse.
The Hanau-Wilhelmsbad spa, fashionable from 1777 to 1785, was the location of the Masonic Congress in the summer of 1782 (16 July - 29 August). William IX made it his summer retreat, and the ruined castle, prominent in the painting, was where high-degree Masons from the whole of Europe had deliberated the fate of the rite of Strict Observance.
A Brief Encounter with Adam Weishaupt in 1804
Saturday, September 20th, 2008 | Adam Weishaupt | No Comments
by Terry Melanson (20/09/2008)
Johann Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830); founder of the Order of the Illuminati
Relatively late in the research for the book Perfectibilists, I became aware of an short account from Henry Crabb Robinson, in his Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence, where he had gone to Gotha in 1804 and met with Adam Weishaupt. I hadn’t included this exchange in my own book (as it wasn’t readily accessible to me at the time). However, recently, Google books has scanned in a full-view copy of the diary. Here, then, is Henry Crabb Robinson’s encounter with Adam Weishaupt (in Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence, Vol. I, Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co. 1869, pp. 124-6):
Some Original Writings of the Order of the Illuminati (title - p. 11)
Saturday, September 20th, 2008 | Original Writings | 4 Comments
NB: Superscripted endnotes are my own, while the parenthesized footnotes are from the original editors of the collection, c. 1786/87. – Terry Melanson
Some Original Writings Of The Order of the Illuminati
WHICH WERE FOUND AT THE RESIDENCE OF ZWACK, FORMER COURT COUNCILLOR, DURING THE DOMICILIARY SEARCH EXECUTED AT LANDSHUT, ON THE 11TH AND 12TH OF OCTOBER 1786
Printed on the Supreme order of His Highness the Elector
Munich Printed by Antoine Franz Printer of the Court, And on sale at the three libraries