Tyger
Paranormal Adept
I have always been a keen history buff - history just in general as story, and more specifically as in the history of scientific thought, or the occult ('hidden') history of the Gnostic, spiritual streams and what-have-you from ancient times through the Middle Ages (what I catch on the History Channel regarding all this is so 'popularized' it's hard to recognize). I am definitely an amateur - but in that word's original meaning from the Latin: lover, I am a lover of the subject in all it's forms - how we come to think the way we do.
So, in some meanderings, I have come across some YouTube videos of this woman, Charlotte Iserbyt, who wrote 'The Dumbing Down of America'. I have heard of this book but I never read it, oddly enough, given my work, but so it is. She is a whirlwind with all sorts of threads of thought and experiences weaving through her reasoning - much of it compelling, worthy of a second look, especially when she talks about computers vis-a-vis the young - and anyone. Other stuff - like the Marxism/Communism rants - shades of the 1950's and we all know what a blow to the intellectual life in the US that was. Not so much the red-baiting anymore but the curious rants about 'socialism' - is very much abroad these days. Is she the source? She is a woman on a mission and is convinced of her message - that in itself is compelling enough. Anyone who speaks their 'truth' is always a power. Anyone familiar with her?
Listen to her here, and if you do, be prepared, she covers a lot of ground, and as with all things I think there is some truth but also a lot of chaff mixed in with the wheat: LINK:
Here is one of her short articles: Charlotte Iserbyt -- Conservative Treason: Selling Out Your Children
What she is weaving and threading through her thoughts seems seminal to this idea of a New World Order and all that stuff that one hears - and that I have seen hinted at here on this chat site - and I'd like to get people's opinion of all this, since I suspect some of you are more well-versed in this direction.
Anyway, at the end of this long video, she mentions this book that I have never heard of (or have no memory of hearing about) and I am intrigued, because I have some acquaintance with the occult or hidden history of the French Revolution, so this book is intriguing.
The book is called: "Proofs of a Conspiracy: Against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and Reading Societies (Forgotten Books)" by John Robison.
Amazon Blurb (emphasis my own): "John Robison (1739-1805) was a Scottish scientist, who late in life wrote the one of the definitive studies of the Bavarian Illuminati. He was a contemporary and collaborator with James Watt, with whom he worked on an early steam car, contributor to the 1797 Encylopedia Britannica, professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, and inventor of the siren.
"Although Robison was very much an advocate of science and rationalism, in later life, disillusioned by the French Revolution, he became an ardent monarchist. In this work, Proofs of a Conspiracy, Robison laid the groundwork for modern conspiracy theorists by implicating the Bavarian Illuminati as responsible for the excesses of the French Revolution.
"The Bavarian Illuminati, a rationalist secret society, was founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776 in what is today Germany. They had an inner core of true believers, who secretly held radical atheist, anti-monarchist and possibly proto-feminist views, at that time considered beyond the pale.
"They recruited by infiltrating the numerous (and otherwise benign) Freemasonic groups which were active at the time on the continent. Necessarily they had a clandestine, compartmentalized, hierarchical organizational form, which has led some modern conspiracy theorists to identify them as the original Marxist-Leninist group. However, this is most likely simply a case of parallel evolution.
"Since we don't have convenient access to the source documents of the Bavarian Illuminati we have to rely on Robison and the Abbé Barruel's Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, both in the 'opposing views' category, for information on this group. The Illuminati have today become a byword for a secret society which hoodwinks its junior members and puppet-masters society at large. This reputation is in no little part due to Robison's book."
The Amazon review that follows gives an excellent summation. Anyone care to comment?
"John Robison's classic Proofs of a Conspiracy was written in the relatively short sliver of time following the Revolution in France, during the Terror, and prior to the inception and development of the Napoleonic Wars, and therefore acts as much as a window on a specific place in time as it does a primer on conspiracy theories as connected to the Illuminati and related movements.
"Robison's work is broken into four main chapters: the development of Continental European Masonic Lodges and their political and secret character, their baroque multiplication of ever more fanciful degrees and 'secrets,' and the overtly anti-monarchical and growing revolutionary character increasingly prevalent therein; the founding ideas, character (if it can be called that) of Weishaupt's Illuminati movement, the types of people involved therein and their functions and motivations; associated Illuminist movements such as specifical the German Union and other Reading Societies bent on continuing the Illuminati goals once the original movement was suppressed by the Elector and pushed (further) underground; and finally on the character of the Revolution in France, and how this was in large part a success of the anti-monarchical Masonic Lodges of France and Germany, and specifically of the Illuminist movements.
"Each chapter is presented with as much documentation (often impounded from Illuminati members themselves, it consists of a great deal of correspondence among the top leadership) as available at that time, and Robison, while he does his best to be dispassionate as regards the evidence itself, is not shy about adding his own opinion to the mix where appropriate. About a quarter of each chapter amounts essentially to his discussion of the implications of his findings, and the moral breakdown implicit in the Illuminati values of radical atheism, reason alone to be worshipped, propaganda towards ensnaring women in the movement, hypocrisy and shockingly poor personal behavior of several of the Illuminated, and so on. It is delightful reading, and informative as well.
"Robison was a highly educated man, professor, inventor, scholar and intellectual, and one would on the surface think that an appeal to reason and progress alone as presented by the Illuminist movements would have had some appeal to him. But the evidence made plain by the daily perversions of justice, morality, and common sense taking place across the Channel from him, in France, during the Terror, repelled him, and the final part of Proofs offers a strong and full-throated defense of monarchy, the innocence and goodness of women, the Constitution of England, and conservatism in general.
"This book is contemporaneous with Edmund Burke's much more famous Reflections, and while he takes a totally different angle on the events of the day, one respects the well argued conclusions."
So, in some meanderings, I have come across some YouTube videos of this woman, Charlotte Iserbyt, who wrote 'The Dumbing Down of America'. I have heard of this book but I never read it, oddly enough, given my work, but so it is. She is a whirlwind with all sorts of threads of thought and experiences weaving through her reasoning - much of it compelling, worthy of a second look, especially when she talks about computers vis-a-vis the young - and anyone. Other stuff - like the Marxism/Communism rants - shades of the 1950's and we all know what a blow to the intellectual life in the US that was. Not so much the red-baiting anymore but the curious rants about 'socialism' - is very much abroad these days. Is she the source? She is a woman on a mission and is convinced of her message - that in itself is compelling enough. Anyone who speaks their 'truth' is always a power. Anyone familiar with her?
Listen to her here, and if you do, be prepared, she covers a lot of ground, and as with all things I think there is some truth but also a lot of chaff mixed in with the wheat: LINK:
Here is one of her short articles: Charlotte Iserbyt -- Conservative Treason: Selling Out Your Children
What she is weaving and threading through her thoughts seems seminal to this idea of a New World Order and all that stuff that one hears - and that I have seen hinted at here on this chat site - and I'd like to get people's opinion of all this, since I suspect some of you are more well-versed in this direction.
Anyway, at the end of this long video, she mentions this book that I have never heard of (or have no memory of hearing about) and I am intrigued, because I have some acquaintance with the occult or hidden history of the French Revolution, so this book is intriguing.
The book is called: "Proofs of a Conspiracy: Against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and Reading Societies (Forgotten Books)" by John Robison.
Amazon Blurb (emphasis my own): "John Robison (1739-1805) was a Scottish scientist, who late in life wrote the one of the definitive studies of the Bavarian Illuminati. He was a contemporary and collaborator with James Watt, with whom he worked on an early steam car, contributor to the 1797 Encylopedia Britannica, professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, and inventor of the siren.
"Although Robison was very much an advocate of science and rationalism, in later life, disillusioned by the French Revolution, he became an ardent monarchist. In this work, Proofs of a Conspiracy, Robison laid the groundwork for modern conspiracy theorists by implicating the Bavarian Illuminati as responsible for the excesses of the French Revolution.
"The Bavarian Illuminati, a rationalist secret society, was founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776 in what is today Germany. They had an inner core of true believers, who secretly held radical atheist, anti-monarchist and possibly proto-feminist views, at that time considered beyond the pale.
"They recruited by infiltrating the numerous (and otherwise benign) Freemasonic groups which were active at the time on the continent. Necessarily they had a clandestine, compartmentalized, hierarchical organizational form, which has led some modern conspiracy theorists to identify them as the original Marxist-Leninist group. However, this is most likely simply a case of parallel evolution.
"Since we don't have convenient access to the source documents of the Bavarian Illuminati we have to rely on Robison and the Abbé Barruel's Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, both in the 'opposing views' category, for information on this group. The Illuminati have today become a byword for a secret society which hoodwinks its junior members and puppet-masters society at large. This reputation is in no little part due to Robison's book."
The Amazon review that follows gives an excellent summation. Anyone care to comment?
"John Robison's classic Proofs of a Conspiracy was written in the relatively short sliver of time following the Revolution in France, during the Terror, and prior to the inception and development of the Napoleonic Wars, and therefore acts as much as a window on a specific place in time as it does a primer on conspiracy theories as connected to the Illuminati and related movements.
"Robison's work is broken into four main chapters: the development of Continental European Masonic Lodges and their political and secret character, their baroque multiplication of ever more fanciful degrees and 'secrets,' and the overtly anti-monarchical and growing revolutionary character increasingly prevalent therein; the founding ideas, character (if it can be called that) of Weishaupt's Illuminati movement, the types of people involved therein and their functions and motivations; associated Illuminist movements such as specifical the German Union and other Reading Societies bent on continuing the Illuminati goals once the original movement was suppressed by the Elector and pushed (further) underground; and finally on the character of the Revolution in France, and how this was in large part a success of the anti-monarchical Masonic Lodges of France and Germany, and specifically of the Illuminist movements.
"Each chapter is presented with as much documentation (often impounded from Illuminati members themselves, it consists of a great deal of correspondence among the top leadership) as available at that time, and Robison, while he does his best to be dispassionate as regards the evidence itself, is not shy about adding his own opinion to the mix where appropriate. About a quarter of each chapter amounts essentially to his discussion of the implications of his findings, and the moral breakdown implicit in the Illuminati values of radical atheism, reason alone to be worshipped, propaganda towards ensnaring women in the movement, hypocrisy and shockingly poor personal behavior of several of the Illuminated, and so on. It is delightful reading, and informative as well.
"Robison was a highly educated man, professor, inventor, scholar and intellectual, and one would on the surface think that an appeal to reason and progress alone as presented by the Illuminist movements would have had some appeal to him. But the evidence made plain by the daily perversions of justice, morality, and common sense taking place across the Channel from him, in France, during the Terror, repelled him, and the final part of Proofs offers a strong and full-throated defense of monarchy, the innocence and goodness of women, the Constitution of England, and conservatism in general.
"This book is contemporaneous with Edmund Burke's much more famous Reflections, and while he takes a totally different angle on the events of the day, one respects the well argued conclusions."
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] People generally have very little grasp of how their choices and actions will turn out - and that goes for wealthy people and educated people and people who are movers-and-shakers. Pretty clueless.
