THE PLOT AGAINST CIVILISATION.

Reviews and Literary Notes

"World Revolution," by Nesta H. Webster; published by Messrs. Constable and Co., Ltd., London; a recent addition to the Brisbane School of Arts Library.

Many persons are inclined to regard the French Revolution as a justifiable uprising of the people of France against cruel oppressors, and to claim that the principles for which the sans culottes fought have established themselves as the principles by which all modern government must be guided. Mrs. Webster, in her book entitled, "The French Revolution" did much to show that if we take the trouble to trace the origin of the revolutionary movement in France, we shall not be so enamoured by its leaders, though we may have greater sympathy for those of the "proletariat" who suffered. That there is a revolutionary movement to-day is undeniable, and that movement certainly is not wholly industrial — not a mere attempt by employed to obtain higher wages and better conditions of labour from employers. In "The French Revolution," Mrs. Webster plainly enough said that we are face to face with a plot against civilisation which has been pursued more or less fanatically ever since the 1st May, 1770, on which date Adam Weishaupt, Professor of Law at Ingolstadt, founded a secret society, the Illuminati, "for mutual assistance in attaining a higher degree of morality and virtue." If "The Illuminati" had actually set themselves to improve the world, all would have been well. But though some, even many, of its members were persons of great talents and high rank, the society itself soon became suspect. Its constitution and organisation, as any encyclopedia will tell you, were taken partly from the Jesuits and partly from the Masons, and within a decade the Bavarian Government decided to dissolve it. But we must be fair to both the Jesuits and the Masons. We must understand that neither Jesuits nor Masons of British orders had the remotest idea of the aims of Weishaupt and his disciples (who remain to this day). Mrs. Webster attacks neither Jesuits nor British Freemasons. She merely says that the methods of the Jesuits and the lodges of Continental Masons were used by Weishaupt and his disciples (mostly Jews), to overthrow civilisation as we know it. And here again it is necessary to explain. These Jews who worked, and are working against civilisation, are not the Jews who honour and practise their religion, but apostate atheistic Jews who take not the slightest thought for the sufferings which they may cause to their fellow men.
 Very often it is said that the movement towards "World Revolution" must be attributed to "war weariness." Mrs. Webster tells us that this is the most fallacious explanation which could be offered. It is not a matter of "nerves" at all; it is a real "plot." "Revolution is not the product of war, but a malady that a nation suffering from the after-effects of war is most likely to develop, just as a man enfeebled by fatigue is more liable to contract disease than one who is in a state of perfect vigour. The truth is that for the last 145 years the fire of revolution has smouldered steadily beneath the ancient structure of civilisation, and already, at moments, has burst out into flames, threatening to destroy, to its very foundations, that social edifice which 18 centuries have been spent in constructing. The crisis of to-day is then no development of modern times, but a mere continuation of the immense movement that began in the middle of the 18th century. The revolution through which we are now passing is not local but universal, it is not political but social, and its causes must be sought not in popular discontent, but in a deep-laid conspiracy that uses the people to their own undoing."
 It is a tremendous task to endeavour to link up all revolutionary movements for the last 145 years into one whole, to show that the very principle or want of principle which guided Weishaupt, guided Lenin in the twentieth century. Yet that is exactly what Mrs. Webster has attempted. But who and what was Weishaupt? Mrs. Webster says: "Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the Illuminati, was born on the 6th February, 1748. His early training by the Jesuits had inspired him with a violent dislike for their order, and he turned with eagerness to the subversive teaching of the French philosophers and the anti-Christian doctrines of the Manicheans. It is said that he was also indoctrinated into Egyptian occultism by a certain merchant of unknown origin from Jutland, named Kolmer, who was travelling about Europe, during the year 1771, in search of 'adepts.' Weishaupt, who combined the practical German brain with the cunning of Machiavelli, spent no less than five years thinking out a plan by which all these ideals should be reduced to a system, and at the end of this period he had evolved the following theory. Civilisation, Weishaupt held with Rousseau, was a mistake; it had developed along the wrong lines, and to this cause all the inequalities of human life were due. 'Man,' he declared 'is fallen from the condition of liberty and equality, the state of pure nature. He is under subordination and civil bondage arising from the vices of man. This is the fall and original sin.' The first step towards regaining the state of primitive liberty consisted in learning to do without things. Man must divest himself of all the trappings laid on him by civilisation and return to nomadic conditions— even clothing, food, and fixed abodes should be abandoned. Necessarily, therefore, all arts and sciences must be abolished. 'Do the common sciences afford real enlightenment, real human happiness, or are they not rather children of necessity, the complicated needs of a state contrary to nature, the inventions of vain and empty brains?' "
 Thus Weishaupt constructed the machinery of revolution. He trained his "adepts" with assiduous care. He was the first "Spartacus" of Germany, and that fact may explain much that has happened in Germany within recent years. Reduced to a formula, the aims of the Illuminati are thus stated: (1) Abolition of monarchy and all ordered government ; (2) abolition of private property; (3) abolition of inheritance; (4) abolition of patriotism; (5) abolition of the family (that is, of marriage and all morality, and the institution of the communal education of children). Mrs. Webster insists that this formula was advocated throughout the French Revolution and has been consistently advocated by the present-day Bolshevists. Even the French Revolution of 1848, we are told, was a result of the "conspiracy" which began in 1770. In Mrs. Webster's eyes Karl Marx is nothing more than an impostor who did not originate anything; he was merely a plagiarist, and a poor plagiarist at that. And very mercilessly, the author exposes the bitter animosities, the quarrelllngs, and the pettinesses of the men who like Marx and Bakunin in the nineteenth century, were purporting to be striving to make the whole world "one happy family." Socialism, Syndicalism, and Anarchism are fully discussed ; they all seem to come into the "plot." Writing of the French Revolution of 1871, Mrs. Webster says: "It will be seen then that Internationalism as devised by Weishaupt, interpreted by Clootz, and carried out by Marx and Engels, and in our own day by the agent of Germany, Nicholas Lenin, has served two causes only — German Imperialism and Jewish intrigue." If the reader is not prepared to admit Mrs. Webster's conclusions or even her statements of facts, he must still allow that her case is presented with the greatest ingenuity. The warning runs thus: "Let us not forget that the cult of Satan which flourished in Bavaria at the same time as Illuminism, and was in all probability connected with it, is practised to-day in our own country. The powers exercised by the modern Illuminati are occult powers, and range from hypnotism to black magic, which, since the days of the magician Cagliostro, have always formed part of that stock-in-trade of the sect. It is therefore no fantastic theory but the literal truth to say that the present world crisis is a conflict between the power of good and evil. Christianity is a beleaguered citadel surrounded by the dark forces which have mustered for the supreme onslaught. Only in one way can it be withstood. The words of Joseph de Maistre, who, like Barruel, regarded the French Revolution merely as the first stage in the campaign, must be taken as the battle-cry of the white army to-day: 'The French revolution is Satanic in its principle and can be only really killed, exterminated and finished by the contrary principle ! The Christian principle — that is the force that must be opposed to the Satanic power of the world revolution."

Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld. : 1872 - 1947), Saturday 14 January 1922, page 11