to make further examination into the origins of the Order.
Origins of the Illuminati
That Weishaupt was not the originator of the system he named Illuminism will be already apparent to every reader of the present work; it has needed, in fact, all the foregoing chapters to trace the source of Weishaupt's doctrines throughout the history of the world. From these it will be evident that men aiming at the overthrow of the existing social order and of all accepted religion had existed from the earliest times, and that in the Cainites, the Carpocratians, the Manichæns, the Batinis, the Fatimites, and the Karmathites many of Weishaupt's ideas had already been foreshadowed. To the Manichæans, in fact, the word "Illuminati" may be traced--"gloriantur Manichæi se de caelo illuminatos."
It is in the