「イルミナティ」*1は所謂陰謀理論な人々に大人気の陰謀組織で、最近ではレディ・ガガがイルミナティの「広告塔」だといった珍説まで出る始末。
さて、歴史的存在としての「イルミナティ」とはどういう組織だったのか。Michael Barkun A Culture of Conspiracy*2を参照してみる。BarkunはJames H. Billington Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith(1980)という本に依拠して、次のように述べている；
The Bavarian Illuminati (formally, the Order of Illuminists) was established by a Bavarian canon-law professor, Adam Weishaupt, on May 1, 1776. Utilizing organizational models taken from both the Jesuits and the Masons, Weishaupt created a secular organization whose aim was to free the world “from all established religious and political authority.” An elaborate apparatus of secrecy and ritual was designed not only to protect the organization from state penetration but to mold its members into an elite capable of achieving Weishaupt's grandiose objective. By the 1780s, it had acquired a peak membership of approximately 2,500, most in German-speaking areas. The organization's aims and its clandestine methods (for example, the infiltration of some Masonic lodges) attracted unwelcome government attention, which proved potent enough to bypass even the order's security measures. By 1787, the Illuminati had been dissolved, but its sweeping goals, attention to secrecy, and insistence on unswerving personal dedication made it a model for a sizable number of early-nineteenth century revolutionary organizations, much in the manner of the Paris Commune in the next century.
In short, the Illuminati influenced subsequent revolutionaries, albeit indirectly, even though the organization seems on the most reliable evidence to have lasted no more than eleven or twelve years. Yet the irony is that if its sympathizers were eager to preserve its legacy and to achieve the total liberation that had eluded Weishaupt, its enemies were even more eager to keep it alive. They insisted that it had never died, that its dissolution was only apparent, and that in the ultimate act of clandestinity, it had survived its own death. (…) (pp.46-47)
- 作者: Michael Barkun
- 出版社/メーカー: University of California Press
- 発売日: 2006/04/04
- メディア: ペーパーバック
- クリック: 7回
- この商品を含むブログ (10件) を見る
John Robinson Proofs of a Conspiracy(1978)
Abbe Barruel Memoirs, Illustrating the History of Jacobanism(1803)
である（pp.45-46. See also Richard Hofstadter ”The paranoid style in American politics”http://www.harpers.org/archive/1964/11/0014706）。 Hofstadterは、イルミナティ陰謀理論は直ぐに廃れて、流行は別の陰謀理論に移ったとしているが、それに対して、Barkunは「イルミナティ」の（少なくとも「イメージ」）が米国社会に拡散するのは寧ろ1830年代以降だと述べている（p.46）。さらに、上掲のRobinsonと Barruelの本は現在でもジョン・バーチ協会*4を通して絶賛発売中である（ibid.）。
*1:Mentioned in http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20080810/1218343197 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20091013/1255405021 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20091019/1255890095 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20100923/1285214473 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20110417/1303010257 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20110424/1303573112 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20110619/1308483341
*2:Already mentioned in http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20110624/1308884616
*3:実際は、大革命の直前に解散している。
*4:http://www.jbs.org/ See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society
