The Knights of the Order of Jonathan, defenders of the Honour of Divine Providence, was founded in 1755 by 14 German nobles. At left is the official banner with two crosses and a crown. In 1767 “Jonathan” was removed and, in 1785, they became known as: The Equestrian, Secular and Chapterial Order of Saint Joachim. The royal families of Europe had long been organized around knightly societies that managed the military crusades among other duties.
Albert Pike stated in A Historical Inquiry In Regard To The Grand Constitutions Of 1786, he believed the disbanded Illuminati continued on through the various branches of the Rosicrucian Order, including the later versions of the Gold Rosicrucians, namely, the Order of Perfect Initiates of Asia, or the Asiatic Brethren, and the various Orders of Light, specifically mentioning The Order of Saint Joachim (St. Jonathan), who actually could have been the wellspring from which the Illuminati emerged.
Supposedly, the Jesuits, Illuminati and Rosicrucians were enemies seeking to steal initiates from each other, but the most powerful ones seem to have also been Freemasons. The machinations of the various occult societies of the Enlightenment Era have never been fully investigated, possibly because the evidence leads to great discomfort among historians.
At this time, Germany was dotted with 500 independent kingdoms. It didn’t take much imagination to realize if all the German-speaking peoples of Europe were united, they would be the dominant economic force in the world. And this would be doubly so if a unified Germany made an alliance with their neighbor to the south, the sprawling Ottoman Empire stretching from the Balkans in the north, Algiers in the west, and Baghdad in the east. The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was considered God’s emissary on earth for most Muslims, much the same as the Catholic Pope was regarded in Southern Germany, but in 1922 he went the same route as French and Russian nobility.
Long before Muslims lost their Sultan, there were some important shakeups. The first was the spread of alternative forms of Christianity not subservient to the Catholics, a trend begun in England, but one that eventually spread to Northern Germany. Germany divided into Catholics versus Protestants, a schism that unleashed a hundred years of unrelenting terror.
The next major development was the widespread negative reaction to the increasingly powerful Jesuits, who had become the dominant global force since the Templars were overthrown by the King of France. Not only did Jesuits dominate trade, they had founded most of the schools and universities across Europe. Some felt the Jesuits were the Templars reborn, although through the guise of Freemasonry, the supposed bitter enemy of the Jesuits.
The power and popularity of Freemasonry was it allowed people of all religions to join. If there ever was going to be a unified Germany, they needed societies to encourage religious tolerance, and that was the whole point of the founding of the Order of Saint Joachim, for it included powerful Protestants, Catholics, Rosicrucians, Freemasons, and, later, Illuminati in its ranks.
The Illuminati sought to dispel religious superstition and elevate the minds of members through discussion groups. However, politics and religion were never appropriate topics. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, a different agenda may have been pursued, one that advanced the leaders to greatest influence. It is typical to shield evil desires with displays of noble intentions. A primary goal could have been the unification of Germany.
The founder, Adam Weishaupt, may have been a master intelligence agent, an orphan raised by Jesuits who rose to a leading role in a Jesuit-owned university, holding a position formerly held only by Jesuits. In hindsight, it seems possible he was a secret Jesuit agent holding down the fort while the most visible members of the society sought refuge in Russia for a few years. He did have a major influence on the development of the occult initiatory societies, as well as the Golden Dawn, the OTO, the Nazi SS, Communism and the terrorist Weather Underground that destroyed the counterculture movement in America.
Germany did unite thanks in large part to the Knights of Joachim. Records show that several of their members were also inside the Illuminati, most notably Count von Kollowrat-Krakowsky. But other members were Freemasons and/or Rosicrucians.
The Order had a direct connection to the Gülden und Rosenkreuzer (Gold Rosicrucians), founded in 1777, another society with Masonic and Illuminati roots. The Gold Rosicrucians drew heavily on Eastern and Islamic mysticism, which would have helped forge a strong relationship with the powerful Ottoman Empire. The Gold Rosicrucians were led by Johann Karl Baron von Ecker und Eckhoffen, who was also Chancellor of The Order of Saint Joachim. The Baron was a member of several mystic societies, including the Christian Masonry of Bohemia and the Asiatic Brethren. So you can see the scope of these knights was immense.
But as soon as a unified Germany made an alliance with the Ottoman Empire, the rest of Europe and Russia ganged up and smashed that alliance into a hundred pieces. And they never were allowed to crown another Muslim Sultan, as Islam was divided into factions that could be pitted against each other. The pre-WWI Berlin-to-Baghdad empire would not reunite until the Nazis took power, and even then, the empire was short-lived.
It’s interesting how Antony Sutton wrote America’s Secret Establishment, revealing Yale University’s Order of Skull & Bones deploys similar rituals and techniques as invented by the original Illuminati. Even more interesting, Prescott Bush was one of the most powerful Boners in history, the one who dug up Geronimo’s skull and femurs and brought them back. Some consider it the greatest crook in Boner history. Later on, Prescott became a director of New York’s Union Bank, a principle source of Nazi funds in America. And then his sons and grandchildren went on to great power and influence.
TIMELINE
1478 — The Spanish Inquisition attacks the last vestiges of Manichaeism that had survived in a quasi-Christian form.
1509 — Inspired by tales of Camelot, Íñigo López de Loyola (Ignatius of Loyola), takes up arms for the Duke of Najera in Spain at age 18; wounded in battle, he studies the lives of the Saints while hospitalized; inspired by Francis of Assisi he develops guided meditation techniques while on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
1517 — The Reformation begins at the University of Wittenberg, Germany.
1525 — Inquisitor General Alonso Manrique de Lara issues an edict against alumbrados, who believe enlightenment brings a state of impeccability that allows indulgence in sinful acts without staining the soul.
1534 — After graduating from the University of Alcala in his early thirties (where he studied theology and Latin) Ignatius falls in with a group of alumbrados and is called before the Inquisitor General to be grilled on his beliefs.
1539 — Ignatius founds the Society of Jesus (The Jesuits) with six students at the University of Paris, all of whom have military experience; they quickly create schools and send missionaries around the world; and lead retreats that practice group silence, followed by guided group meditations. They become the Catholic Church’s vanguard against the Reformation, but begin to alarm Europe’s oligarchies with the speed with which they dominate trade and economic development, a lot of which stems from profits taken from the New World.
1614 — Three anonymous documents are circulated through Europe reporting on secret powers attained by mystics; they are all written as fake news, but become widely accepted as fact, launching the Protestant-connected Rosicrucian movement which is infested with fake mystics who deploy magic shows to lure high-ranking Freemasons and their wives into their staged seance psyops.
1773 — Bending to royal pressures, the Pope of Rome begins a campaign of suppression against the Jesuits to stem their growing influence.
1776 — The Illuminati is founded by Adam Weishaupt, a professor of canon law at a Jesuit university in Ingolstadt, Germany.
1777 — Weishaupt joins Freemasonry in order to secretly spread his society.
1784
1785
1787 — Illuminati banned four times, some internal correspondence published, bans have little impact other than driving Weishaupt into retirement
1790
1797 — History of Jacobinism by Augustin Barruel accuses Illuminati of fomenting the Reign of Terror as a massive psyop, a book written by the leading Jesuit of France; while Proofs of a Conspiracy by John Robison published in Scotland by a Protestant contains much of the same accusations.
1798 — An Illuminati scare spreads through New England, mostly through Protestant pulpits.
1818 — 20-year-old Mary Shelley writes Frankenstein, set in Ingolstadt; it is intended as an update on Prometheus and draws on the city’s reputation for Illuminist intrigues.
1826 — William Morgan murdered in Batavia, New York, after publishing an expose of Freemasonry.
1830 — Weishaupt dies but not before being reconciled with the Catholic Church, indicating his split with them may have been staged.
1832 — Order of Skull & Bones founded at Yale University after William Huntington Russell visits Germany and joins a college fraternity there during summer school. Skull & Bones rituals will mirror those of the original Illuminati.
1836 — Russell creates a military prep school in New Haven to prepare young men to serve as officers for a coming Civil War.
1837 — Funded by Russell, John Brown devotes himself to the destruction of slavery through violence, and sparks the war Russell was agitating for.
1880 — Prussian police spy Theodor Reuss revives the Illuminati in Munich, but the name of the order is soon changed to Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO).
After the Illuminati were exposed in the late 1770s, and found in possession of all sorts of devious spy tech, the real secrets of the order were shipped to the King of Sweden to protect them. These documents were eventually returned to a Masonic lodge in Bavaria, and were eventually seized by the Nazis, who briefly imprisoned the head of the OTO, and banned all masonic lodges, unless they pledged loyalty to Hitler.