Proofs of a Conspiracy

John Robison

Edited with an Introduction by Alex Kurtagić
Abergele: The Palingenesis Project, 2014
530 pages

hardcover only: $50

Proofs of a Conspiracy discusses the role of Continental-style Freemasonry, Adam Weishaupt’s Illuminati, and Karl Friedrich Bahrdt’s German Union in disseminating the Enlightenment ideas that led to the French Revolution, and is also the founding text of the modern conspiracy theory of history in the English language.

Whatever criticisms may be made in relation to Robison’s methodology, Proofs . . . remains valuable today for several reasons: firstly, it provides a snapshot of Continental-style Freemasonry and secret societies in the 18th century; secondly, it is the earliest attempt, along with Barruel’s, to examine the role of conspiracies in a revolution; thirdly, it supplies insights into what we may call the ‘lowlands’ of the ‘Enlightenment’—not its eminent thinkers, but the odd and peculiar characters that were also active in this movement; and, finally, it presents a systematic critique of the ideals that in France led eventually to the Terror, thereby serving as a primary source for understanding opposition to the French Revolution and its core ideal of equality as a moral absolute.

The Counter-Enlightenment arguments of authors like Robison are today more relevant than ever, since the politics of the West remain a legacy of his era, to the extent that even conservatives ultimately derive their political philosophy from Locke and rely on terminology based on the seating arrangements of the French National Assembly. Though it was soon forgotten, Proofs . . . has had a lasting impact; indeed, we live in times awash with conspiracy theories. Be it about the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the New World Order, 9/11, or master conspiracies involving all of the above, could the growth of conspiratology tell us something about democratic societies in liberal modernity?

CONTENTS

Editor’s Foreword

Introduction
I.  Schisms in Free Masonry
II. The Illuminati
III. The German Union
IV. The French Revolution
Postscript

Index

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Robison (1739–1805) was a Scottish physician and mathematician. He taught philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and was the first General Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Robison was the inventor of the siren and collaborated with James Watt in the development of an early steam car. In later life, Robison sought to understand the causes of the French Revolution, and, as a former Freemason, the role of secret societies in spreading the Enlightenment ideas that led to the Terror. He published his findings as Proofs of a Conspiracy (1797). He is the father of the conspiracy theory of history in the Anglophone world.

hardcover only: $50