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A Journal of Atheist News and Thought (VoI.24, No.1) MarcH, 1982

AMERICAN ATHEISTS
is a non-profit, non-political, educational organization, dedicated to the complete and absolute separation of state and church.
We accept the explanation of Thomas Jefferson that the "First Amendment" to the Constitution of the United States was
meant to create a "wall of separation" between state and church.
American Atheists are organized to stimulate and promote freedom of thought and inquiry concerning religious beliefs,
creeds, dogmas, tenets, rituals and practices;
to collect and disseminate information, data and literature on all religions and promote a more thorough understanding
of them, their origins and histories;
to encourage the development and public acceptance of a human ethical system, stressing the mutual sympathy,
understanding and interdependence of all people and the corresponding responsibility of each individual in relation to
society;
to develop and propagate a culture in which man is the central figure who alone must be the source of strength, progress
and ideals for the well-being and happiness of humanity;
to promote the study of the arts and sciences and of all problems affecting the maintenance, perpetuation and
enrichment of human (and other) life;
to engage in such social, educational, legal and cultural activity as willbe useful and beneficial to members of American
Atheists and
.
. . to society as a whole.
.Ath elsm
may b e d e fme d

P.O.Box2117

Send$40foroneyear's
card and certificate,

AUSTIN,TX78768-2117

membership and you will receive our newsletters, a membership


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'/

as the mental attitude which


unreservedly accepts the
supremacy of reason and
aims at establishing a lifestyle and ethical outlook
verifiable by experience and
the scientific method, independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority and
creeds.
Materialism declares that
the cosmos is devoid of
immanent conscious purpose; that it is governed by
its own inherent, immutable
and impersonal laws; that
there is no supernatural
interference in human life;
that man - finding his
resources within himself can and must create his own
destiny. Materialism restores
to man his dignity and his
intellectualintegrity.Itteaches
that we must prize our life
on earth and strive always to
improve it. It holds that man
is capable of creating a
socialsystem based on reason
and justice. Materialism's
"faith" is in man and man's
abilityto transform the world
culture by his own efforts.
This is a commitment which
is in every essence lifeasserting. It considers the struggle
for progress as a moral
obligation and impossible
without noble ideas that
inspire man to bold creative
works. Materialism holds
that humankind's potential
for good and for an outreach
to more fulfilling cultural
development is, for all practical purposes, unlimited.

March, 1982 Vol. 24, No.3

ARTICLES
The Illuminati Of Lebanon and
Profits of Doom
In The Name of

ON THE COVER

Conrad Goeringer
Lebensraum - H. J. Skutel
- Robert Stricklin
Life - James Aldridge

3
15
24
28

AMmICAN
A

Jou.n.' of Alh

"

New

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A1l-IElST

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No

11 Merch

FEATURED COLUMNISTS
The Thoughtless and The Damned - Ignatz Sahula-Dyke
Champions without Christ - Jeff Frankel
Stellar Evolution - G. Stanley Brown

19
20
21

REGULAR FEATURES
Editorial: Attorneys

and Religion -

Jon G. Murray

Editor-in-Chief
Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Managing Editor
Jon G. Murray

Poetry
Angeline Bennett
Robin Murray-O'Hair
Gerald Tholen

Production Staff
Art Brenner
Richard Richardson
Richard Smith
Gerald Tholen
Gloria Tholen
Beverly Walker

Non-Resident Staff
G. Stanley Brown
Jeff Frankel
Ignatz Sahula-Dycke
Fred Woodworth

'The American Atheist" is published


monthly by The American Atheist Center,
2210 Hancock Dr., Austin, TX 78756, a
non-profit, non-political educational organization.
Mailing address: P. O. Box 2117, Austin,
TX 78768-2117. Copyright
1982 by
Society of Separationists, Inc.
Subscription rates: $25.00/year.
Available in one year subscriptions only at this
rate. This journal is provided, free, to members of American Atheists as an incident of
membership, which is $40.00/year.
Manuscripts submitted must be typed,
double-spaced, accompanied by a stamped,
self-addressed envelope. The editors assume
no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts.
The American Atheist
is indexed in
Monthly Periodical Index
ISSN: 0032-4310

March,1982

Austin, Texas

In the northern hemisphere, March is a


very significant time. With it comes the Vernal Equinox and the promise of Spring.
Now, as the sun passes northward over the
celestial equator, it brings lengthening days
which, in turn, trigger plant chemistry thereby affording a renewed unfolding of life.
Quite naturally, this has been a very highly
regarded season to those civilizations which
directly benefit from the natural resources
thus generated -;
The significance of the Vernal Equinox
is not limited to the north however, for it is
now a time for the harvesting of crops in the
southern regions of our globe. So it is that
we find a universal time for celebration new beginnings on the one hand and a reaping of bounty on the other.
Poets of every era have paid tribute to
many marvelous occurances during Spring
imd fall. Yet, perhaps we have overlooked
one of the most significant implications of
the Equjnox: it is a time of natural equality
for all. By the equal division of night and
day our natural environment is enhanced
bilaterally.
Perhaps since humankind has attained at
least a partial ability to control environment, we should attach a new and eve
greater significance to this date - an extension of tolerance and equality to all of our
geographic neighbors, without regard for
racial or political considerations.
The Equinox brings a sincere welcome to
all who share this planet which seemingly
grows smaller with every new achievement
and with an ever increasing need for true
understanding among people.
G. Tholen

Page 1

Editorial

Jon G. Murray

A principal part of the activity of the American Atheist


Center is legal action to uphold the constitutional principle
of state/church
separation or- to utilize such activity for
litiguous education of the populace at large. Attorneys
which American Atheist have employed or encountered
have been of two types. (1) Attorneys who are timid,
supportive of the legal system of which they are a part and
from which they derive their livelihood. Their basic fear of
the nation's legaj system is so well developed that they are
unwilling to acknowledge or do not understand its faults or
its abuses, which make it effective in suppressing minorities
such as Atheists. These attorneys are "company" men or
women. (2) Attorneys who are not unaware of why and
where the system fails but who simply do not care to be the
one to expose the failure or press for modifications. There is
a desire to maintain the "equilibrium" and "the respect" of
their peers. These attorneys will not "rock the boat."
Timidity, lack of social concern and fear lead to an
ineffective, even lackadaizical,
pursuit of the question
involved in the cases they handle for American Atheists.
Deep inside, perhaps somewhere
in the fabled subconscious, they have decided that no matter how much they
would like to win, they had better just "put on a good show"
and lose "with dignity."
Our desire to wage a principled legal battle in the face of
unprincipled opponents precludes these attorneys from
being daring or bold within the legal structure which they
erroneously perceive to be one of decorum and decency.
When "boldness" does come out it is in the form of little
forays accomplished by written barbs (never oral, as they
lack the courage to face the judge or their opponents in
open court). It borders on or is actually downright insulting
to the courts, but usually on a collateral issue dealt with in a
brief. Universally, these have been cheap shots which bring
the opprobrium
of the court down upon the American
Atheist litigants rather than on the attorney and they are
posited in such a way as to have this effect. Few attorneys
are capable of the art of rhetorical insult and most often
these small forays come off, simply, as crude.
Other attorneys .are money hungry or fame hungry.
Attorneys frequently want their names in the media or their
coffers filled. This type wants to soak the Atheist movement
for all it can pay on the Atheists' genuine desire to seek
redress of civil liberties or equity at law with what counsel is
available. The only legal contractor to come forward can
ask what he likes for the job-when competition is lacking.
The Atheists are then caught up in the market place
practice of caveat emptoir. Let the buyer beware!
What is needed intead of American Atheists going to the
open market place for an attorney of uncertain quality and
ethics is for a group of concerned and dedicated Atheists
with legal training and status to volunteer free services,
prorated among the group in respect to hours and effort.
This group should be headed up by an in-house attorney at
The American Atheist Center who is coordinating all the
Page 2

efforts. The Center should be monetarily responsible only


for the salary of the in-house attorney, actual filing and court
costs and printing of briefs, which can be done at The
Center's in-house printing plant. These attorneys must be
motivated to stand up for the truth and rights of Atheism,
for justice and equality for Atheists under law and for
"common sense" in the courts. (The continuing Supreme
Court non-sense
term "benevolent
neutrality" in state
.church separation cases defies both logic and common
sense.) They must be eager for systemic rather than
cosmetic changes in the legal system, striking at the root
- the radical in a mathematical sense _. to eliminate adjudicated inequities.
They must have a conviction which causes a desire to
make the legal system, in which they labor, representative
of a better base at the same time they lay a predicate for the
present and future protection and survival of Atheistic and
other human rights. This must be paramount
instead of
monetary, power, or fame considerations.
We ask, simply. that American Atheist legal counsel be
principled.
I know of no attorney, representing the side of reactionary religion -- or a state apparatus designed to support
religion as religion in reciprocation
supports the state ..
who allows funding, out of his/her own pocket, or extra time
needed to prepare a case, to deter from the objective: the
preservation
and enhancement
of religious prerogatives.
Attorneys for the state, or religious groups, always give
freely of themselves far in excess of that for which they are
compensated
in an effort to preserve existing situations
whether harmful to the rights of another arnot.
,.
Therefore a consistency of purpose is also a "must" for an
American Atheist attorney. Separation of state and church
must mean the same in every instance and be applied
with the same intensity of purpose, for separation means
separation as envisaged by Thomas Jefferson who spoke in
terms of a "a wall of separation between church and state."
The National office of American Atheists wishes to find
and band together an affiliation of such persons. Perhaps,
some say, they do not exist in our culture now as I feel once
they did. But knowing that we need a score of Clarence
Darrows, I cannot agree. I know that some such arbiters for
'common sense justice must exist. Call it "faith," if you will,
although
we generallY eschew the use of the word. but
there must be a positing of some "faith" in our fellows.
We will no longer proceed with either type of representa-.
tion mentioned above. If that means no litigation, it is better'
by far that we abstain from such litigation than to place
ourselves in an inextricable positionof disadvantage for all
times at the hands of a precedent leqalsystem by engaging
in action at far less than our full potential.
If we know what we need, it is folly to take less.
We, at National, reserve the right to hold Chapters to this
policy as well. Any sub-unit of a national movement which

March, 1982

(continued

on page 27)

American Atheist

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by Conrad Goeringer

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In the history of Atheism, no period is as complex and
exciting as that time we know today as the Enlightenment.
Cultural historians and philosophers consider this era to
have spanned the eighteenth century, cresting during the
French Revolution of 1789. It was a phenomenon
which
swept the western world, drowning in its wake many of the
sclerotic and despotic institutions of l'ancien regime or old
order, and helping to crystallize a new view of man and the
roles of reason, nature, progress and religion.
And too, the Enlightenment
was a feverish period of
Atheistic thought and propaganda.
Many of the leading
philosophers of the time were Atheists or deists, opposed to
the cultural and political hegemony long exercised by the
Vatican and its shock troops, the Jesuits. Much of the
political, social and literary activity of the Enlightenment
was characterized
by a repudiation of christianity, and the
formulation
of doctrines
calling for separation,
if not
outright abolition, of state and church.
.
While there are many currents to this period, one of the
fascinating and little-explored backwater eddys of particular interest to Atheists and libertarians is the role of
Masonic lodges and "secret societies" during this time.
Surprisingly little objective historical work exists on this
area. The drama of social revolution and intellectual
apostacy was taking place not only in the streets of Paris, or
the open fields of Lexington and Concord, but in countless
lodges and sect gatherings and reading societies as well.
These conclaves, with their metaphorical-hermetic
secrets,
symbolism and lore, were the crucibles of "impiety and
anarchy" so bemoaned by church dogmatists of the time
like the Jesuit Abbe Barruel. Of all of the clubs, societies,
libraries, salons and lodges of this stormy time, perhaps
none has been so villified, attacked and misunderstood
as
that group known as the Order of the Illuminati.
My purpose here is not to write a history of the French
Revolution, or even attempt the herculean task of digesting
the complex fabric of the Enlightenment.
We do know,
however, that much of the best in western civilization today
rests on some of the ideas germinated or reformulated
during that age of revolution, ideas formulated by Atheists,
deists, rationalists and state-church separationists.
What I
hope to undertake here is a twofold task: an examination of

Freemasonry,
with its founding and subsequent role in the
Enlightenment,
and an examination
and defense of the
maligned, little-understood sect of the Illuminati-a
defense
long overdue.

***
Any definition of the Enlightenment must, of necessity,
begin with a prohibitorum-attempts
to rigidly segmentalize history are often futile, since they envision history as a
string of compact, autonomous
events, each a "period",
distinct in an respects from all other times. History is not this
way, of course, and like any period the Enlightenment is.a
broad designation to help us understand
the events and
ideas of the 18th century. Were we to construct a model to
loosely describe this time, however, it would emphasize
three areas-reason,
nature, and progress. It was during
this time that how leading personalities
looked at their ~
world, its religions, its societies, its knowledge, its political
institutions, changed so radically. And it was here that the
birthpangs of industrialization
were being felt, where so
much of the modern world was to be born from the womb of
the old order.
Reason is the capstone in the pyramid of ideas which
describe the Enlightenment.
Reason, not faith or divine
revelation, told one the facts about life and the world. Some
held that reason alorie, the product of thoughtful contemplation, could reveal archetypical truths in much the
same way Pythagorus had deduced his theorems on Samos
millenia before; others maintained that reason involved an
empirical faculty as well. In either case, reason was intermeshed with nature. Like nature, mans' reason had become
vitiated by those notorious enemies of humanity-religious
superstition,
government,
socioeconomic
rank, poverty
and prejudice. Destroy these in an unpheavel of antiauthoritarian wrath, and once again reason would provide a
lucid, natural mechanism for apprehending
the world and
guiding a new human society.
Reason, then, was the faculty for comprehending
nature,
the second important element in the Enlightenment triad.
Nature was just that-the
natural, real world. It was not the
realm of the supernatural,
the demonic, or the godly, but
the empirical or rational "stuff" of which the universe was,
and is, made. Nature could be understood through reason;

March, 1982

Austin, Texas

OJ

Page 3

through logic, scientific inquiry, and open mind of free


inquiry, nature would yield her secrets.
Finally, there was progress.
Reason, working upon
nature, would enhance the quality of life for each and every
one of the Enlightened. The Atheist philosopher Condorcet
preached the doctrine of a coming Utopia, where indefinite
progress would bring forth a "natural salvation" of plenty
and immortality. Progress held that since the universe was
knowable, enlightened man could become the subject of
history rather than its object. Mankind could fashion nature
to its wishes; the efficacy in shaping the natural order was
limited only by time and the sheer limits, if any, of reason.
On each and everyone
of these points which underpinned the Englightenment-reason,
progress, naturethe orthodoxy of the era were hostile. The church maintained that divine inspiration and revelation were sufficient
to lead the kind of life desired for man by god, pope and
king. Nature was hostile, unknowable,
and forever a
surrogate to a higher reality ruled by supernatural
forces,
gods and demons alike. One's time on earth was allotted
only for preparation
in dying and being reborn in that
supernatural
kingdom. As for progress, the hierarchical
arrangement of a god in heaven and kings and popes on
earth as his "lawful representatives"
demanded conformity,
stablility, and obedience, instead of development, experimentation and blasphemy.
Atheism and militant anti-clericalism were both important elements in the Enlightenment.
The French philosopher Voltaire saw priests and christianity as a scourge on
the human race, exclaiming "E'crasez l'infame!" (Crush the
infamous things!). The clergy were perceived corrupt, the
pope considered a tyrant, the king despised as a lackey and
errand boy for the whoremaster in Rome.
If the bible was the holy book of the christian enlightenment, then the Encyclopedia was the inspiration of the
Enlightenment. Here' was a compendium of human knowledge dealing with arts, sciences mechanics and philosophy
which swelled to some 36 volumes by 1780. Begun by the
Atheist Diderot in 1751, the Encyclopedia bore the imprints
of Voltaire, Montesque,
Rousseau,
Buffon, Turgot and
others. Gracing the title page of Diderot's compendium in
the first edition was a drawing of Lucifer, symbol of light and
rebellion, standing beside the masonic symbols of square
and compass.
The Enlightenment mirrored the christian religion. Reason became its revelation, nature its god. If the Enlightenment did not abolish the myth of god, it reduced god to a
sort of absentee deity, a caretaker to the universe who was
nevertheless subject to the laws of nature. Deism arose
from the same fertile soil of the Enlightenment
as had
Atheism, and no doubt many deists were actually Atheists ..
The deistic god was symbolized in the masonic lodges as the
"Great Architect of the Universe", certainly not the god of
the christian superstition.
This and other critical notions of the Enlightenment were
spread throughout
all of Europe, and even to the New
World. It had been nearly 250 years since the first book
printer to popularize literature, one Aldus Manutius of
Venice, had begun the mass circulation of pamphlets and
booklets. The Enlightenment
was a literary explosion of
dissertations,
books and journals, 'all filled with the novel
ideas as controversies
of the period. These ideas spread;
they were discussed and debated in the universities (where
Page 4

March, 1982

[1

they often met with official and clerical censure), in reading


societies, in cafes and salons, and in those mysterious
lodges of the Freemasons.
As the Encyclopedia became the bible of the Enlightenment, Freemasonry
became its ritual. The history of the
craft is centuries old, "obscured", as one writer puts it, "by
the blending of provable history and legend."! It was during
the Middle Ages that guilds of builder-masons
existed.
T raveling from town to town, they worked on the massive
cathedrals,
castles and bridges; they were neither merchants nor fixed to the soil, but instead a mobile fraternity of
skilled workers. As early as the 14th century, stonemasons
had organized into companies or lodges. The craft was both
respected and demanding, for it was the mason who was
both skilled contractor and, in many cases, architect of a
particular building project.2
In the latter part of the century, the "Old Charges" were
composed in some 115 documents
outlining the nature,
organization and functions of the craft. A 1425 manuscript
traces the origins of masonry back to Euclid, through the
construction of the Tower of Babel and Solomon's Temple.
The Charges also established metaphorical principals and
ethical standards to govern members of the guild.
Secrecy was common in most medieval craft guilds, and
masonry was no exception. This mystification served to
monopolize and control the knowledge of the craft, as well
as to check renegade
serfs from leaving their feudal
bondage and joining the free and migratory trade 'of
masonry. Scottish masons had invented passwords and
special handshakes by the early 17th century, a ritual which
soon spread throughout the lodges.
By the late 1600s, masons' guilds had enrolled growing
numbers of "accepted" or "gentlemen" members who did
not make their living directly from the mason trade. Some
writers have accounted for this tendency by pointing to the
growing interest in architecture
amongst the nobility and
landed. There was also the conviction
among many,
however, that the lodges, with their secrecy and symbolism,
harbored certain hermetic truths handed down from ancient civilizations. Hard science (what little there was) still
overlapped with occultism- and Masonry was transformed
into a potpourri of cabalism, mythology, ritual and intellectual heterodoxy.
By the early 1700s, the original
emphasis on principles of stonemasonry
had been transformed into allegories. Unhewn stone was said to symbolize
"man in his infant or primitive state, rough and unpolished".
Polished stone was, as a corollary, "man in the decline of
years, after a regular well-spent life in acts of piety and
virtue, which can not otherwise be tried and approved than
by the Square of God's word and the Compass of his own
self-convincing conscience."
_4

'The best work today on Masonry and kindred sects during


this time is James Billington's Fire in the Minds of Men (New
York: Basic Books, 1980). Special attention is devoted to
secret societies in Chapter 4.
2A concise summation of masonic origins is found in Norman
MacKenzie's Secret Societies, published in 1967, Chapter 7.
For the more ambitious, see A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, by the mystic-mason A.. E. Waite (New York:
Weathervane Books, 1970).
3Alchemy is one of the best examples of what we could term
"pre-science". See Alchemy; Ancient and Modern by H.
Stanley Redgrove (New York: University Books, 1969).
American Atheist

Despite some of the biblical flavor of this symbolism, it


was not necessarily christian. The first masonic Book of
Constitutions
maintained that members of any religion
could become Masons, "leaving their particular opinions
(about god) to themselves ...."
In 1717, a United Grand Lodge was formed in London,
using Dr. John Anderson's Constitution to standardize the
rituals and practices of Freemasonry. It was from this
constitution that the masonic tales of Hiram Abiff, King
Solomon's Master Builder, along with the pyramid style
organizational model would date. Some Masons, however,
calling themselves "Ancients" refused to acknowledge the
regency of the Grand Lodge.
This "Grand Lodge Era" for English Masonry was deistic
and politically somewhat conservative. Many Lodge memo
bers were clergy and the bulk of Masons were disposed
toward the Hanoverian dynasty which ruled the country.
Outright Atheism was a taboo, of course. Anderson had
stipulated in his Constitution that:
'
A Mason is obliged, by his tenure, to obey the Moral
Law: and if he rightly understands the Art, he will
never be a stupid Atheist nor an irreligious libertine ....
The spread of Freemasonry, however, did not assure the
uniformity and homogeneity found in the English lodges. A
Paris lodge had been founded in 1725. In the minds of the
Bourbons, the doctrine of religious and intellectual tolerance was inherently subversive. In 1737, Louis XV edicted
that loyal subjects could not belong to the masonic order.
The mere secrecy of the society, with its lore and awesome
symbolism, was considered fertile soil for imaginative invective. Works bearing titles like The Grand Mystery of the
Freemasons
Discovered soon appeared. A letter in one
popular English journal, The Gentleman's Magazine, declared that "Freemasons who have lately been suppressed
not only in France, but in Holland 'were a dangerous race of
Men "'4.
Europe in the 17.o.os,particularly the Continent, lacked
the types of political organizations where opposition to
existing authority could find expression. Even universities,
often controlled by jesuit administrations, were mere handmaidens to the aristocracy. It was only natural, then, that
secret societies and salons, lodges of the Freemasons and
private reading clubs would become the focal points for the
sedicious and "impious" activists of the Enlightenment.
Masonry required that novitiates pass through a series of
degrees, accompanied by symbolic ritual, whereupon the
secrets of the craft were gradually unfolded; the metaphors
of masonry, the remaking of humanity as early masons had
remade rough stone, soon served as a revolutionary
allegory. This became the new model of revolutionary
organization -lodges of brothers, all seeking to reconstruct
within their own circle an "inner light" to radiate forth
wisdom into the world, to "illuminate" the sagacity of the
Enlightenment. So pervasive and appealing was this notion
that even relatively conservative and respected members of
society could entertain the prospect of a new Utopia, "or at

least a social alternative to the ancient regime ....-s


Within Masonry were constant splits and tendencies,
making it all the more difficult to trace the threads of
Atheistic thought. 6 Political and intellectual renegades of
every sort, from Atheists to occultists, gravitated toward
the lodges. There were the mystical and spiritualist masons
of the Rosicrucians," or the followers of the Sweedenborgian heresy, both of which substituted for orthodox
christianity equally obtuse and absurd hermetic systems.
There were lodges where one found somewhat conservative dispositions towards politics and religion, often loyal
to the Grand Lodge in London. There were the bored
aristocrats who, freed of the onerous task of earning a
productive living, dabbled in alchemy, astrology and the
search for the elusive Philosopher's Stone. But it was still
within the lodges of Freemasonry where the ideas of the
Enlightenment, with their siren call of revolution and
Utopia, nurtured and spread.
By the end of the 17.o.os,the stigma attached to Freemasonry by clerical and civil authorities had taken hold.
Clement XII issued his papal bull In Eminenti banning
Masonry and forbidding lodge membership for catholics.
He declared:
For the sake of the peace and safety of civil governments, and spiritual safety of souls, and to prevent
these men from plundering the House like thieves,
laying waste the Vineyard like wolves, perverting the
minds of the incautious and shooting down innocent
people from their hiding places ....
no catholic was to be a Freemason.
Eleven other popes would condemn Freemasonry in the
most vitriolic language possible. Leo XII lamented the fact
that christian princes and heads of state had not fully
obeyed the Vatican in suppressing Masonry, "as the safety
of both Church and State required", in the words of one
jesuit writer. Pius VIII declared of the Masons that "lying is ~
their rule, Satan is their God, and shameful deeds their
sacrifice ....", Gregory XVI wrote that Masons-and kindred
secret brethern were comparable to a sewer in which "are
congregated and intermingled all of the sacrileges, infamy
and blasphemy which are contained in the most abominable
heresies." Pius IX, outdoing his papal predecessors, condemned Masonry in six separate bulls between 1846 and
1873, denouncing "those baneful secret sects who have
come forth from the darkness for the ruin and devastation
of Church and State ...."B

SBillington,Fire in the MindS of Men, Chapter 4.


6A.E.Waite's Encyclopedia is a rich source for appreciating
these multitudinous sects and lodges.
7See Charles Mackay, LL.D., Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, originallypublished in 1841,
but reprinted in 198.0 by Bonanza Books, New York. Mackay'
has sections dealing with assorted heretics and occultists,
including the Rosicrucians; his work is a skillfull expose of
sham, pseudo-science and charlantanism, spanning the whole
of human follyand gullability.
BReferto Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement by
Rev. E. Cahill, S.J. (Dublin: M.H. Gill & Son Limited, 1959).
4See Nesta H. Webster Secret Societies and Subversive
Movements, originallypublished in 1924,but reprinted in 1967 Another source concerning the church pronunciations about
by the Christian Book Club of America, Hawthorne, California Freemasonry, as well as attempts to link the craft with "devil
(p. 15.0).Webster was a rabid royalist and a religionist, who worship" is found in Minor Historical Writings, Dr. Henry
sought. to connect Masonry and Illuminismwith a pernicious Charles Lea (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
1942).
jewish plot.
Austin,Texas

March, 1982

PageS

It was in America where so many of the ideas of the


Enlightenment were actually instituted." It has been said
that Europe conceptualized
the Enlightenment,
whereas
America, with the establishment
of an "enlightened republic", realized it. Freemasonry
had come to colonial
America about 1730; the bulk of the evidence suggests that
most lodges were politically neutral "in the English tradition", although "... outstanding individuals ... make a definite
link between Freemasonry, the new political ideas, and the
struggle for independence."!" Not surprisingly, these figures
were Atheists and deists, wary of the christian theocracies
of Europe. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was a deist,
signer of the Declaration of independence,
early opponent
of slavery, advocate of the philosophy of progress and a
founder of the American Philosophical Society. Along with
the French Atheist and philosopher Helvetius (1715-1771),
he was a member of the Paris "Lodge of the Nine Muses",
one of the continental masonic groups where the "revolution was hatching" .11 After his initiation into the lodge in
1776, he went on to assume the post of Venerable Master.
The Nine Muses (or "Nine Sisters" as it was later known)
also printed the constitutions
of all thirteen American
states, becoming "the first school of constitutionalism
that
ever existed in Europe .... "12
George Washington
became Charter Master of the
Alexandria lodge, first president of the United States, and a
vociferous advocate of fundamental Enlightenment ideas,
including separation of state and church.P
Thomas Jefferson would also serve as president, amidst
the hysteria which would sweep Europe and America
concerning Masonry and the Order of the Illuminati, it
would be Jefferson who publically defended the Order and
its founder, Adam Weishaupt. 14
Thomas Paine, pamphleteer
of the Revolution, was an
associate of many radical European Freemasons, including
Nicholas Bonneville. Bonneville was a radical republican
and head of a neo-masonic group known as "Friends of
Truth", active during the French Revolution. Paine's Common Sense, published in January of 1776, echoed the
masonic notion that "we have it in our power to begin the
world over again .... " Later, he argued against Edmund
Burke in defense of the French Revolution, declaring in
1791:
What were formerly called revolutions were little
more than a change of persons or an alteration of local
circumstances
... what we now see in the world ... is a
renovation of the natural order of things, a system of

principles as universal as truth .... 15

***
Despite the masonic motto of "Liberty, Equality and
Fraterity", revolution in America and revolution in Europe
ultimately took distinctly different courses. The Enlightenment had given rise to diverse notions of how Utopia was to
be reached. Many of the French philosphers, so repulsed by
the brutalizing aspects of religious superstition, widespread
poverty and political oppression' argued in defense of
"enlightened despots", with Frederick the Great serving as
a role-model. It was in 1740 that Voltaire first visited
Frederick's court to discuss the ideas of the Enlightenment.
Voltaire had been initiated into the Lodge of the Nine
Muses, and Frederick had long been a Freemason, serving
as Grand Master and head of the Scottish Rite. To his
credit, Frederick helped secularize many of the institutions
of Prussia during his reign.
it was these" enlightened despots" who, coached by the
philosphers of the Enlightenment,
were to usher in a new
age, free of the incumbrances of religious superstition.
Others influenced by the Enlightenment were less trusting in the power and authority of a beneficent State.
William Godwin (1756-1836), anarchist and Atheist, represented one of the most consistent libertarian impulses of
the Enlightenment, writing "Political Justice" in 1793. Even
the followers of Jefferson, the republican, admired Godwin's anti-authoritarian
sentiments and Jefferson, while. a
governmentalist at heart, spoke of "a little rebellion now and
then" by the people to be "a good thing". Godwin's Atheism
and anti-statism were handed down to two other figures in
libertarian history, Michael Bakunin (1814-1876) and Pierre
Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865), both Freemasons.
When
revolution again swept Europe in the mid-nineteenth
century, it was the masonic model of organization
which
provided an organization
blueprint for Bakunin's international Brotherhood and the Revolutionary Alliance. Ii

***

T racing the myriad threads and interconnection


amongst
countless lodges, reading societies and sects is something
which, even today, constitutes relatively unexplored historical terrain. The revolutions
and upheavals
of the
Enlightenment were the products of manifold forces and
dvelopments-economic,
social, political and conspiratorial. Conservative polemicists, then as now, emphasize this
conspiratorial
dimension, at the cost of ignoring the profound historial developments
sweeping Europe as well as
the New World. Then as now, they portrayed
social
revolution as merely the design of hidden, arch-conspire.
tors (a mythology which was, at times, accepted
by
9Henry Steele Commager, The Empire of Reason (New York:
Anchor Press/Doubleday,
1977). Commager's thesis is sup- , conspirators as well). This is not to say that in those lodges
ported by one of the best bibliographies of material dealing with
the New World and Enlightenment, although not specifically in ISBilIington, p. 56.
the context of Freemasonry.
16SeeE.J. Hobsbawn, The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848 (New
lORe:Mackenzie, Secret Societies.
York: New American Library, 1962). This is one of the best
JlRe: Waite, New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Vol. 1, pp. economic histories of the period, with considerable mention of
70-71.
Freemasonry. Hobsbawn is a vital tool for understanding the
12Re:Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men,
economic underpinnings of the Enlightenment, and in learning
13Dr. Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Freedom Under Siege (Los about the transition throughout Europe from feudalism toward
Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1974). This work is an excellent
early industrial capitalism.
collection of facts about religion in early America, along with
17See George Woodcock, Anarchism (Cleveland: Meridian
separationist opinions held by the founding fathers.
Books, 1967). Also, see Michael Bakunin's monumental essay
14See Jefferson's letter to' Bishop Madison, January, 1800, God and the State, reprinted in 1970 by Dover Publications,
noted in the Jefferson Cyclopedia.
New York.
Page 6

March,1982

, American Atheist

and reading societies there were no conspiracies laid, no


plans hatched-far
from it. But the power and efficacy of
those plots was not in actual practice, but in the myths
created often by their adversaries. Nowhere is this more the
case than with the notorious group known as the Order of
the Illuminati.

lfJ>,iIRm )jJ1<~~7rHllE:Gl...I;''JtNI,\i'~Ir:~iI
It is ironic, yet in a way fitting, that the most secret, yet
historically popular manifestation
of Enlightenment
conspiratorialism was formed in Bavaria. Jt was here in the
middle of the 18th century that the ideas of the Enlightenment met such hostility and censure from an entrenched clerical and aristocratic
establishment.ts
One
traveler reported the existence of some 28,000 churches
and chapels; Munich, a city of only 40,000 boasted 17
convents. As one writer observed, "the degree of power to
which the representatives of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits)
had been able to obtain in Bavaria was all but absolute" .191t
was in Bavaria on February 6, 1748 that Adam Weishaupt
was born, son of a professor of cannon law at the University
of Ingolstadt. The father died when the boy was seven; the
child's intensive education then rested in the hands of his
godfather, Baron von Ickstatt, a member of the Privy
Council.r? Adam had free access to the Baron's magnificent
library, which was well-stocked with the works of the
Enlightenment philosophers.
The young Weishaupt graduated from the university in
1768, rising quickly within the jesuit-dorninated
institution
to become a full professor in 1733.21 Despite his militant
Atheism, he managed to become dean of the law faculty two
years later at the age of 27.
Constantly at odds with university and ecclesiastical
authorities, Weishaupt conceived the idea of forming a
secret society, an order, organized along lines similar to the
Jesuits, yet committed to the ideals of the Enlighte~menP2
Weishaupt had embraced the Rousseauian vision of a world
free of the constraints of government and church, where
humanity would exist in a universal community with nature.
IHVernon Stauffer, New England and the Bavarian lIIuminati
(New York: Russell & Russell, 1967). This edition is a reprint of
the 1918 printing. Stauffer deals mainly with the Illuminatihysteria in America, yet his third chapter, dealing with the
Order in Europe, is important source material.
14Ibid.
"itR. LeForestier,
Les Illumines de Bauiere et 10 FrancMaconnerie allemande (paris, 1915). Reprinted in 1968 by
Slat kine Reprints, Geneva, Switzerland.
llFor a concise history of the University of Ingolstadt, see the
New Catholic Encyclopedia entry under University of Munich.
Weishaupt and his Order are given a passing mention. It is also
noted that during World War II, the University suffered heavily
from bombing raids which destroyed nearly 70'1., of its buildings
"including the library with a large part of its bound volumes,
manuscripts and rare book collections." We can only wonder if
priceless materials on Illuminism and Weishaupt were lost to
posterity.
nSee Billington, p. 94. Several names had been 'suggested for
the new Order, including "Perfectabilists" and later, "The
Bees". The former corresponded with Weishaupt'slofty notion
of "remaking humanity" along the' lines of Pythagorean perfection and the latter is rooted in masonic and early hermetic
symbolism.'
.
Austin, Texas

Yet he was more than a visionary day-dreamer;


he was
prone to action, convinced that only the relentless work of a
powerful secret order could counter the pernicious influences of the clergy. This contestation
embraced Manichean symbolism, a war between light and darkness,
between the illumination of reason and the sordid dark
ignorance of religious superstition. LeForestier wrote that
Weishaupt
contemplated
his scheme for several years
and-after
bickering over an appropriate name-founded
the Order of the Illuminati on May 1, 1776.23Jt was this order
which was to become, in the words of the jesuit polemicist
Abbe Barruel, "the conspiracy of the sophisters of Impiety
and Anarchy against every religion natural or revealed .... "24
Unfortunately, Barruel's four-volume work has come to
constitute one of the few sources of information on the
Order of the Illuminati. The Abbe labeled Weishaupt:
... an odious phenomenon in nature, an Atheist void of
remourse, a profound hypocrite, destitute of those
superior talents which lead to the vindication of truth,
he is possessed of all that energy and ardour in vice
which generates conspirators for impiety and anarchy.
Continuing, Barruel claims the Order's Chief to be:
... head of a conspiracy which, when compared with
those of the clubs of Voltaire and D'Alambert, or with
the secret committees of D'Orleans, make these latter
appear like the faint imitations of puerility, and show
the sophister and the Brigand as mere novices in the
arts of revolution.

***
Borrowing from the masonic model, Weishaupt structured the Order in pyramid-like fashion, with novices
starting at the bottom degree of 'minerval', and receiving
training in a network of minerval academies. These circles
met each month to discuss recruitment
and the various
tasks of the Order; there was also a thorough schooling in,
those "impious" works of the day, such as the writings of the
Enlightenment philosophers. Minervals were-often selected
and enticed into the society by 'insinuators'; each candidate
was required to complete an exhaustive autobiography
of
,;

llNeedless to say, the date of May 1, 1776 has caused much


rumor and misinformation about the Order; some have
suggested that May Day (May 1) is derived from the Illuminist
founding, when in fact it is a labor day celebration of American
origin. Others have incorrectly asserted that the Great Seal of
the United States is an Illuminati emblem, thereby "proving"
Illuminist activity during, anti after the American Revolution. In
fact, Illuminist symbols are displayed in LeForestier's exhaustive history (based on documents seized by Bavarian
authorities from the Order) and have no resemblance to the
United States Seal.
Not only have right-wing types fallen victim to this mythology, but many "new age" devotees likewise have, uncritically,
accepted the Illuminist or "occult" meaning of the Great Seal.
See Issue No. 41, Gnostica magazine, February/March
1977
for an occultist interpretation of this foolish fantasy.
l-Abbe Augustin Barruel, Memoirs lIIustrating the History of
Jacobinism (London: T. Burton, 1798). Barruel's polemic is
divided into three main sections, dealing with 'The Antisocial
Conspiracy", "The Anti-Christian Conspiracy" and the "AntiMonarchical Conspiracy". Barruel is briefly mentioned in the
New Catholic Encyclopedia under his own name, and identified as a "Jesuit polemicist".

March, 1982

Page 7

himself, his strengths, weaknesses and interests, as well as a


statement of why he sought admission into the Illuminati.
The minerval academies also had the task of obtaining
books and other literary materials useful to the Order, with
the distant goal of establishing an institute for Enlightenment scholars, a library which would be an intellectual
armory for use in the battle with, particularly, the witty
Jesuits.
Those candidates who displayed an appreciation
and
interest in progressive Enlightenment
ideals, as well as
opposition and distaste for civil and ecclesiastical authority,
would gradually be admitted to the higher grades of the
Order. It was here that the true objectives of Illuminism
were revealed. Far from being a mere study group or
reading society that had no social or political goals, the
Order was, in truth, to be a mechanism for the promulgation of the tery "Impiety and Anarchy" denounced by
Barruel. The Order was to work incessantly for the day, in
Weishaupt's words, when
Princes and Nations shall disappear from off the face
of the earth! Yes, a time shall come when man shall
acknowledge
no other law but the great book of
nature; this revelation shall be the work of Secret
Societies and that is one of our grand mysteries .... 25
Weishaupt eschewed the notion of seizing existing political structures,
something truly exceptional for most revolutionists; men had to be re-made, as the stonemason
shaped rock into a thing of harmony, beauty and perfection.
'The grand art of rendering any revolution," he wrote,
"whatsoever
certain is to enlighten the people-and
to
enlighten them is, insensibly to turn the public opinion to the
adoption of those changes which are the given objects of the
intended revolution .... " Illuminists at all grades were to
apply themselves "to acquiring of interior and exterior perfection", a perfection which would, through the works-of the
Order, illuminate the entire world with reason and good
deeds.
Such ideas and activities were prohibited not only in
Bavaria but throughout most of Europe. The circulation of
books and tracts was still regulated in a number of
countnes.w and the heavy hand of jesuit intrigue remained,
despite official disbandings of the Society in 1773. The
Order did its work in secret, constantly fearing exposure to
civil authority and the clergy. Indeed, at the lower level of
the minerval academies, the order postured itself as having
no interest in politics or religion per se, and concerned only
with altruistic deeds based on the life of jesus christ!
Weishaupt's Order grew slowly, reaching a membership
of 200-300, when the Marquis d'Costanza,
acting as an
insinuator, recruited Baron Adolph von Knigge in 1778.
Knigge (1752-1796) was a noted German playwrite and
novelist, who had translated
Mozart's Magic Flute, an
opera abundant with masonic allegory and symbolism.27
25Barruel, vol. 3, p. 25.
26As revealed throughout Baurreul's Memoirs, the Order is
shown to have been vitally interested in gaining the interest of
bookdealers, publishers, printers and heretical writers. Weishaupt sought to strengthen the Illuminati so as to create a book
production and distribution network free of the control of the
church, thus providing an unheard of degree of liberty in
literary circles. Carl Nicoli was important as an Illuminist in this
task.
27The Magic Flute, not only a masterpiece of musical charm, is
Page 8

March,1982

Knigge was already a member of the masonic sect known as


the Rite of Strict Observance,
formed originally to combat
the mystical and occult tendencies within Freemasonry.
Despite his interest in occultism as a hobby, however,
Knigge was an Atheist"
,
Following the Illuminist practice of adopting classical
pseudonyms,
Knigge was known henceforth
as 'Philo'.
Weishaupt had chosen the name of 'Spartacus',
after the
Thracian-Roman
slave who lead a series of slave rebellions
in 73-71 b.c., before falling to the imperial armies of Crassus.
It was Baron Knigge who helped graft on to the Illuminati
much of the ritual of Freemasonry
but Weishaupt
had
dabbled in masonry several years before forming his Order,
and considered it of little use in furthering his own purposes.
It was Baron Xaverius von Zwackf'Cato'),
a member of the
Areopagites, or ruling council of Illuminism, who had begun
the process of recruiting minervals from within masonic
lodges. As a result of this, along with the tireless efforts of
Knigge, the Order swelled in size to over 2,000 and
extended throughout much of Europe. Each country had a
national director who presided over a network of inspectors; they in turn carried on the business of the Order
with the help of provincial aides, working down to the city
level and minerval academy level.
Membership in the Order included some of the major
figures of the German Enlightenment. Christopher Nicolai,
a German Atheist, writer, critic and bookseller (1733-1811)
was Master of the Berlin lodge. He co-founded the critical
journal Bibliothek der Shonen Wissenschaffen
und Freien
Kunste, and collaborated
in numerous literary reviews.
Johann Gottfried von Herder (17441803), German philosopher, Atheist and composer was an Illuminist, as was
Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1823), German philosopher, writer and privy councilor. Goethe is best known,
perhaps, as the creator of Faust, which some have speculated to be an Illuminist allegory.
At the zenith of its power and influence, the Order had
perhaps as many as 3,000 members. The lodqe'et Munich,
along with six other circles throughout
Bavaria, boasted
some 600 members in minerval and advanced degrees.
also a finely orchestrated example of symbolism and allegory,
all of it Masonic in character. Billington speaks of Mozart's
"illuminist" message, although no records list the composer as
a member of the Order. He was, however, a Freemason and
embraced the craft vigorously while still managing to compose
over 600 works in his productive lifetime. The Magic Flute
conveys the message that evil exists as a defiance of the natural
order of things, a natural order (Nature) which is fundamentally good. Evil, then, is a creation of mans'. All in Nature is
good, its misuse through avarice or lust creating the evil. The
Magic Flute in this, Mozart's last opera, is actually the harmony
and order found in the universe.
28Again, it must be emphasized that" occultism" during this era
was not always distinct from what was, at the time, taken for
"science". There was a considerable area of both overlap and
confusion. Alchemy was still being practiced, and many
continued the futile search for the Philosopher's Stone, a
mechanism to transmute materials into silver or gold. What is
important in our discussion here is that much of what
historians in retrospect term" occult" was pre- scientific, and
certainly not christian or religious. Not surprisingly, the church
frowned on such interests, making them all the more appealing
to many.
. American Atheist

Order. The Bavarian elector directed that inquiries be made


Illuminist organizations existed in Poland, Holland, England
and France, often working within the masonic lodges which
and the lodge was ordered dissolved. The closing of other
lodges was soon ordered, as it became obvious to investihad become "illuminized" during the Congress of Wilgators that there was a conspiracy a100t against state and
helms bad in 1782.29
church; the inevitable quislings within the Illuminati soon
The inevitable stresses of operating such a society, with
the constant threat of banishment and public exposure,
appeared. Other factions of Masonry such as the Rosicrucians used this opportunity as well, and some Illuminists.
along with Weishaupt's own predeliction for secrecy and
organizational detail, all took their devastating toil. As the
countered by theorizing that Jesuits were behind the plot to
order grew in numbers, so did the possibility of factionalism,
disband the Order."! Worse yet was the growing animosity
inter-organizational
strife and betrayal. The Order, so
between Weishaupt and Knigge; Philo labeled Spartacus a
dedicated to the perfection of mankind, soon found itself
tyrant, while the embattled Weishaupt
condemned
his
immersed in the travails of bureaucracy
and the imperformer associate for his growing obsession with occultism
and ritual. The ultimate defection of Knigge helped seal the
fections of present-day
human nature. Spartacus-Weishaupt wrote to Cato in August, 1783:
fate of the Order of the Illuminati. Disillusioned by the
I am deprived of help. Socrates, who would insist on
course of events, four university professors in the lower
having a position of trust amongst us, and is really a
degrees of the Order disclosed their secret knowledge to
man of talent, of the right way of thinking, is certainly
the elector, charging that the sect posed a threat to
drunk. Augustus' reputation could not be worse.
christianity, condoned epicurean pleasure, justified suiAlcibiades does nothing but sit all day long with the
cide.F and taught that "the end justified the means" if it
served a noble cause. In 1785, with police raids, public trials
vinter's pretty wife and spends his whole time in
and banishments, the Order was abolished.
sighing and pinning with love .... Tiberius attempted to
Weishaupt was dismissed from his post at the University
ravish the wife of Democides, and her husband took
of Ingolstadt and was given a pension of some 40 pounds,
them in the act. ...
which he refused. He then journeyed to Regenburg, where
So disillusioned with his undertaking at times was Weishe began a pamphlet war with his Ap%gie der llluminaten
haupt that he wrote, in anticipation of the arrival of a
as a defense of the Order. He subsequently found refuge in
prominant candidate for membership in the Order, that the
minerval would balk at joining a society of "dissolute,
the estate of the Count of Saxe-Gotha, Ernest, a member of
immoral wretches, whoremasters,
liars, bankrupts, bragthe Illuminati. Weishaupt later became a professor at the
University of Gottingen, where he published critical works
garts and vain fools .... "30
Seized correspondence
of the Illuminati, exhibited by
on Kantian philosophy. He died there in 1830, his marvelous
Barruel, indicates that a growing portion of Weishaupt's
Order disbanded, and the world little closer to the illumiactivity was expended in maintaining a semblance of control
nated heights which he had sought for it. In his defense,
of some of the freewheeling Illuminists. In one letter,
Weishaupt wrote:
Spartacus told a provincial lodge director that a "worthy .
I have contrived an explanation [of Freemasonry]
Brother of the highest rank in the Order" has stolen.jewelry
which has every advantage, is inviting to christians of
from another member. Would the director implore the
every communion,
gradually frees them from all
Brother to return his loot to its rightful owner? Despite his
religious prejudices, cultivates the social virtues, and
goal to "fit man by illumination for active virtue", even
animates them by a great, a feasible, and-a speedy
Weishaupt was caught up in the tragi-comedy; "1 am in
prospect of universal happiness, in a state of liberty
danger of losing at once my honour and reputation", he
and moral equality, freed from the obstacles which
wrote, "by which I have had long such influence", and
subordination,
rank and riches continually throw in
revealed that he had gotten. his sister-in-law pregnant.
our way. My explanation is accurate and complete;
Attempts to secure abortion failed, and Weishaupt was
my means are effectual and irresistible. Our secret
forced to consumate the cuckholding-marriage
following
association works in a way that nothing can withthe birth of a son.
stand, and man shall soon be free and happy ....
Added to this were the problems inherent from the
To fit man by Illumination for active virtue, to engage
Congress of Wilhelmbad; despite gains made there in
him to it by the strongest motives, to render the
recruiting new members (such as Knigge), the victory in
attainment
of it easy and certain ... this indeed will be
lIIuminizing so much of Freemasonry
was by no means
total. Illuminist propaganda against the church had been
31Fear of the Jesuits during the Enlightenment mirrored the
traced to Lodge Theodore, which was dominated by the
subsequent fears of Illuminist and masonic intrigue; Barruel,
29The Congress was held with the goal of formalizing and
for instance, lays the whole responsibility for the French
standardizing the tenents and rituals of the many diverse
Revolution at the person of the Duke D'Orleans, the Grand
segments of Freemasonry. In this respect, the gathering was a
Orient, and the Illuminati. See Billington for a discussion of
apprehension within the masonic and Illuminist movements of
confusing failure; the Illuminati, however, did manage to win a
Jesuit infiltration.
large number of masonic lodges to its program (see Le32Xavierus von Zwack, alias Cato, had penned letters and an
Forestier and Barruel).
:lUAfar cry from the invincible and totally pernicious demons
essay on the subject of suicide; the right of suicide was one of
conjured by many anti-Illuminist- publicists! If anything, these
the tenents of the Order, and was considered an "eternal
remarks suggest that any "cause" movement, no matter how
sleep". The Order also justified and defended abortion; naturallofty its goals, must nevertheless deal with the limitations of
ly, such notions were anathema to church doctrine, and were
human behavior, and be prepared to face the countless
not discussed at this time with nearly the public acceptance
difficulties stemming from the diversity of human nature.
they are today.
Austin, Texas

March,1982

Page 9

employment suited to noble natures, grand m its


views, and delightful in its exercise ....
And what is the general object? THE HAPPINESS OF
THE HUMAN RACE .... When we see the wicked so
powerful and the good so weak, and that it is in vain to
strive singly and alone against the general current of
vice and oppression, the wish naturally arises in the
mind that if it were possible to form a durable
combination of the most worthy persons, who should
work together in removing the obstacles to human
happiness ... and by fettering lessen vice; means which
at the same time should promote virtue, by rendering
the inclination to rectitude, hitherto so feeble, more
powerful and engaging. Would not such an association be a blessing to the world?
One writer has posed the question of whether the Order
of the Illuminati was any better than the world it sought to
reform? Would the order, had it succeeded, been a blessing
or a curse? And we are still today left with the question of
why Illuminism failed in its enterprise.
Government and clerical harassment, the denial of
fundamental rights of freedom of speech and press-these
obviously were responsible, in large part, for the death of
the sublime Order. Repression and intolerance necessitate
an infectious secrecy which cannot help but contaminate
those whom it touches. The task of promoting ideas soon
became bogged down in the mire of conspiracy, degrees of
revelation, secrets and mysteries, despite the lofty goals
and vision. The genius of Adam Weishaupt was no exception in this case.
Most who have written of the Illuminati have had little, if
any, good sentiments regarding the Order. They have
called Weishaupt a knave, a despot, abortionist, heretic,
demagogue, and traitor to his friends. We know from his
correspondence, however, that he was a man vitally
concerned with social justice, the struggle against political
tyranny, and the Atheist ideal. We know also that despite
his personal shortcomings, he sought fervently "the happiness of the human race." Indeed, perhaps some day the
Order of the Illuminati will be seen as a "blessing to the
world."

IPhrRS'IT IIIlll-hrF'ITIErRSfWh'IT[}{]
The disbanding of the Order of the Illuminati by the
Bavarian Elector failed to dissipate the festering rumors of
the sect's influence and size. Within certain segments of the
state and church, it was thought that the Order had
burrowed still further underground, and was at work'
throughout the continent under many different guises.
Barruel's lengthy polemic against Jacobinism and Illuminism went into print in England a full thirteen years later, in
1798. A similar work by the English royalist John Robison,
titled Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All Religions and
Governments of Europe, was published in Britain and New
York that same year. Both authors claimed that Illuminism
had survived the persecution in Bavaria, although the Abbe
Barruel considered Illuminism to be a manifestation of a far
greater Atheistic evil, namely Jacobinism. The Jacobins
were one of the most radical, anti-clerical and at times
despotic factions during the French Revolution of 1789;
Page 10

March,1982

ironically, they adopted their name from a dominican order


of priests, whose seized monestary served as the jacobin
meeting place.
Other elements within Freemasonry also capitalized on
the exposure of the Illuminists. The Rosicrucians, active
within the masonic lodges of Prussia, warned their fellow
Masons of the Atheistic and revolutionary doctrines of the
Illuminati. Robison himself was a Freemason who considered Illuminism to be a perversion of the craft; history
does not record whether or not he was a Rosicrucian,
although Robison does not explain the widespread popularity of Illuminist ideas within so much of continental masonry.
Nevertheless, the exposure of the Illuminati created
"enormous confusion ... about the whole world of Masonry,
secret societies and sects."33 The myth of Illuminist invincibility (something which the crafty Weishaupt had worked
hard to create!) was nurtured by rumors that the Order
survived in the German Union, created by Carl Frederick
Bahrdt (1741-1792). Bahrdt was a militant Atheist who had
suffered on account of his anti-clerical satires; he founded
the Union with other Atheists as a reading society dedicated
to the circulation of Enlightenment works. Ironically, it was
the Illuminist Areopagite, Bode, who thought the idea of
such a group to be foolhardy. No firm historical evidence
links the Order of the Illuminati to the German Union; if
anything, the Order survived only as ideas, rather than a
working organization.
Such ruminations, however, ignited panic in the Ne-w
World following the French Revolution, as official religion
and puritan institutions in America were in decline. The
early American colonies had all of the trappings of feudal
theocracies; each colony had, in effect, an established and
tax-funded church of the christian religion.l4 In Virginia,
there were laws which provided the death penalty for
speaking against the divinity or tenents of the christian faith.
Delaware prohibited anyone who was not a believer in
'Trinitarian Christianity" from holding a public office. South
Carolina officially declared "the christian protestant" form
of superstition to be "the established religion of the State",
adding: "That God is pubicly to be worshipped" and "That
the Christian Religion is the true religion." 35
The founding fathers with their deistic persuasions no
doubt looked with disfavor on the constant feuding within
assorted christian sects, each of which sought hegemony
over the others. One can also find that these prominent
deists and skeptics were often Freemasons, among them
Franklin, Washington and Jefferson.
Revolutionary America was a period of official disestablishment of the assorted state religions. 36 Virginia
enacted a Declaration of Rights on June 12, 1776, which
provided for "free exercise of religion", and not favoring any
one religious sect. That same year, religions were disestablished in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania; in
1777, New York, Georgia and North Carolina followed suit.
Local and state laws against theatre were repealed, along
with censorship laws as well-all to the consternation of
ministers throughout the country.F
33SeeMackenzie.
34SeeO'Hair.
35lbid.
36Ibid.
37SeeStauffer.
AmericanAtheist

Allof this-the collapse of traditional puritan institutions,


and the dis-establishment of religious bodies-created
a
wide-spread neurosis and anxiety throughout religious
groups. Worse still for the churches, out of some 4 million
persons living in America in 1790, religious groups could
claim only about 5% on their scanty membership roles.
Staunch clergymen chose every conceivable theme and
incident to exploit in the quest for new followers; the
discord of the times, along with the deteriorating condition
of America's relations with France, were no exception.
John Adams had declared May 9, 1798 to be a day of fasting
and prayer, "to implore Heaven's mercy and benediction on
the imperiled nation ...."38 It was on this day that the
Illuminati hysteria in the New World began.
One of the many ministers who preached to their congregations that day was Rev. Jedediah Morse of Boston. He
was known.as a fiery orator, geographer and even an early
supporter of the revolution in France. His enthusiasm for
the revolution waned, however, with the "astonishing increase in irreligion" precipitated by The Terror, and the
subsequent rise of brazen Atheism. Morse warned his
North Church Street audience that similar forces were at
work in America. Historian Vernon Stauffer observed:
If, said Morse, a contributory cause for the present
"hazardous and afflictive position" of the country is
sought, it will readily be found in "the astonishing
increase of irreligion". The evidence of this, in turn, is
to be found, not only in the prevailing atheism and
materialism of the day, and all the vicious fruits which
such impious sentiments have borne, but as well as
the slanders with which newspapers are filledand the
personal invective and abuse with which private
discussion is laden, all directed against the representatives of government, against man, many of whom have
grown gray in their country's service and whose
integrity has been proved incorruptible. It is likewise
to be discovered in the reviling and abuse which,
coming from the same quarter, has been directed
against the clergy, who, according to their influence
and ability, have done what they could to support and
vindicate the government.. ..
When the question is raised respecting the design and
tendency of these things, their inherent and appalling
impiety is immediately disclosed. They" give reason to
suspect that there is some secret plan in operation,
hostile to true liberty and religion, which requires to be
aided by these vile slanders" ....39
Morse maintained that such a master plan did exist, the
fruition of which had already been achieved in France, and
was being put into action throughout the rest of Europe and
America as well. Conjuring John Robison, Morse went on
to warn that during the past two decades, a sect calling
themselves 'The Illuminated" had plotted against thrones
and altars everywhere, and had established itself in the
United States. Jacobinism, the hidden "manifestation of the
Illuminati" was at work'", and Thomas Paine's Age of
38Ibid,p. 229.
39SeeStauffer, p. 232.
4Morse, Barruel and Robison all contradict each other regarding the inter-relation between Jacobinism and Illuminism,
unable to say which exactly is a "manifestation" of the other.
Austin,Texas

Reason was regarded as part of a general plan to accomplish "demoralization of the people".
Morse was careful not to mention Freemasonry as part of
his plot; in this respect, he had followed Robison's lead,
maintaining that Illuminism had been grafted onto the craft,
and represented a corruption of masonic doctrine. Morse's
sermon, along with the circulation of Barruel's Memoirs and
Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy soon created widespread
alarm throughout New England. Such conspiracy theories
were sufficiently vague yet tantalizing to explain, to the
superficial and the uninformed, many of the events taking
place in the land. There indeed was a spirit of irreligion loose
in the country, and the old puritan institutions were
crumbling. The ideas of the Enlightenment were being
realized here on a number of levels, including political rights
as well as the dedication to material progress; but all of this
was due to a number of complex historical and economic
forces, not the midnight plots of small bands of intriguers."
The public debate which followed Morse's revelations in
countless New England journals such as the Independent
Chronical and the Massachusetts Mercury, failed to produce any evidence that Illuminism had survived the persecution of the Bavarian authorities and lived to organize
lodges in the New World. The letters and exchanges
debated Robison's book in particular with razor-tongued
ferocity; and as a consequence, more heat than light was
cast on the entire question. No lodges were uncovered, no
names revealed.
Thomas Jefferson, who would later stand accused of
being part of a non-existent Illuminist conspiracy in the New
World, had read Barruel's scurrilous work about the order.
Like many, even he accepted part of Weishaupt's rationale
in defense of Illuminism found in the chiefs Aopologie der
Illuminaten. In a letter to Bishop Madison in January, 1800,
Jefferson wrote:
I have lately by accident got a sight of a single volume
(the 3d) of the Abbe Barruel's Antisocial Conspiracy,
which gives me the first idea I have ever had of what is
meant by the Illuminatism against which Illuminate
Morse, as he is now called, and his ecclesiastical
associates have been making such a hue and cry.
Barruel's own parts of the book are perfectly the
ravings of a Bedlamite. But he quotes largely from
Wishaupt [sic] whom he considers as the founder of
what he calls the order. As you may not have had an
opportunity as forming a judgment of this cry of 'mad
dogs' which has been raised against his doctrines, Iwill
give you the idea I have formed from ony an hour's
reading of Barruel's quotations from him, which, you
may be sure, are not the most favorable. Wishaupt
seems to be an enthusiastic philanthropist. He is
among those (as you know the excellent Price and
Priestley also are) who believes in the infinite perfectability of man. He thinks he may in time be
rendered so perfect that he will be able to govern
himself in every circumstance, so as to injure none, to
do all the good he can, to leave government no
occasion to exercise their powers over him, and, of
course, to render political government useless. This,
Morse warned of the Illuminist threat, while Barruel concentrated on the Order as another variant of Jacobinism.
41SeeHobsbawn.

March,1982

Page 11

you know, is Godwin's doctrine, and that is what


Robinson [sic], Barruel, and Morse had called a
conspiracy against all government.. .."42

***
Not surprisingly, certain catholic writers blamed the
"virus" of Freemasonry for nearly every political assassination, revolution and war of the nineteenth century. 43
Their" evidence" for such a claim is a potpourri of facts and
myths; particularly in the eyes of the Vatican, the agents of
Masonry were to be found everywhere doing their diabolical
dirty work.
No sooner had the Illuminati hysteria died down than a
new wave of paranoia over Masonry swept the country. An
anti-masonic movement emerged during the early to mid1800s on several occasions, one of which even ran candidates for public office.
Illuminism's spectre rose again in the early 1900s with the
writings of Nesta Webster, a writer who enjoyed considerable popularity in Tory circles in Britain. Her voluminous outpourings warned of plots, secret societies, Illuminists and Masons, all of whom were determined to bring
down the edifices of state and church. By now, the legend of
the Illuminati was more powerful than truth; Webster,
writing in The Nineteenth Century, quoted Vernon Stauffer's work claiming that "As early as 1786, a Lodge of the
Order had been started in Virginia, and this was followed by
fourteen others in different cities ... no, Illuminism is not
dead.v'ln fact, Stauffer had debunked such rumors and
mythologies; Webster had quoted as established fact
something which Stauffer reported as unsubstantiated
rumor. Stauffer analyzed the Illuminist hysteria in terms not
only of the decay of puritan institutions, but in the intrigues
of Federalist vs. anti-Federalist politics. For Webster,
however, jews, Cabalists, Freemasons, anarchists, Illuminists, occultists and heretics of all varieties were linked-in a
grand conspiracy running back through history to establish
what some imaginatively termed an "Occult Theocracy".

***
The ubiquitous paranoia about Freemasonry, along with
the voracious gullability of catholics, proved fertile ground
for one of the greatest literary hoaxes of all time, designed
by an Atheist-satirist known as Leo Taxi!. Born Gabriel
Antoine Jogand-Pages (1854-1907), he was educated by the
Jesuits, but soon became a militant Atheist and anti-clerical
propagandist. He authored a variety of anti-religious skits
and satires beginning when he was 25 including A Humorous Bible, The Skullcap and its Wearers, and A Humorous
Gospel, or the Life of Jesus. He was particularly adept at
ridiculing the sleezy lifestyles of the decadent popes, along
with sacred doctrine and religious taboo. He served as
secretary of the Anti-Clerical League in France, which
boasted some 15,000 members, and edited the society's
newspaper, Anti-Clericale. Earlier, he had published La
Marotte (Fool's Bauble), an Atheist journal of humor and
insult, and in 1880 founded a Society of Freethinkers.
(Accounts vary, but his society may have either merged
with or been renamed the Anti-Clerical League.)

One of Taxil's collaborators was another Atheist, a Dr.


Karl Hacks, who wrote under the pseudonym Bataille. In
1892, the two began issuing a serial publication known for its
infamous title, The Devil in the Nineteenth Century, a
satirical expose of Freemasonry and satanism. The, work
began by referring to Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Humanum
Genus, wherein the holy father divided all of humanity into
two warring camps-those
who worship the one, true
christian god, and those who serve Lucifer. (After the hoax
had been exposed, Hacks remarked that no sooner had he
and Taxil read Leo's encyclical than he perceived "a rare
opportunity to coin money out of the mass credulity and
boundless stupidity of the catholics ...") From this inspiration was born The Devil; Taxil and Hacks set to work;
"sometimes I fabricated the most incredible stories", wrote
Taxil, "as, for example, that of a serpent inditing prophecies
with its tail ..."
The Devil in the, Nineteenth Century is truly a collection
of outrageous, unsupported and amusing tales; the gist of
the story involves progressive revelations about Freemasons and other secret societies and their drive to
establish some kind of Luciferian theocracy on earth (one
strangely resembling the City of God, but with a different
twist!)
All of this was set against the background of "the most
comical episode of his (Taxil's) strange career", a supposed
return to the fold of the church. While writing a book on the
lifeof Joan of Arc, designed to incite animosity amongst the
clergy, Taxil was (so the story goes) overwhelmed by
returned sentiments of religiosity. "I burst into sobs",
revealed Taxil in his comical Confession. "Pardon me, oh
God!, I cried out in a voice choked with tears. Pardon my
many blasphemies! Pardon all the evil 1 have wrought! I
passed the night in prayer, and resolved on the next day to
seek absolution for my sins .... "45 Taxil immediately withdrew from public Atheistic activities, resigning at a meeting
of the Anti-Clerical League. Accounts suggest that few of
his Atheist cohorts believed in Taxil's born-again religiosity,
"yet everyone was puzzled to understand the strategic
purpose of this retrograde movement.. .." Some cried "Hal
You can't fool us! You've been paid by the Vatican! How
much, eh?"
Taxil immediately set to work in writing the first segment
of his sham-expose, his Complete Revelations, overflowing
with imaginary and gruesome tales of devil worship, debauchery and sacrilegious rites. The catholic press, taken
in, greeted the smirking Taxil and his revelations with
exultations, boasting that the works "combined positive
and irrefutable proofs of the diabolical character of the
, Masonic mysteries". By 1887, Taxil had conned his way into
a private audience with Leo XIII,who informed Jorgand that
he was an avid reader of the Revelations .... and Taxilleft the
Vatican with a papal benediction as well as "the conclusion
that he could imagine nothing so absurd that it would not be
received in Catholic circles as authentic and indorsed by
infallible authority ...."46

420mitted from manuscript.


43SeeCahill.
44See The Nineteenth Century, "Illuminism and the World
Revolution",Nesta Webster, July, 1920.Stauffer's work on the
Bavarian Illuminatiappeared in 1918.
Page 12

March,1982

4Slntimes so serious as ours, Atheists owe themselves the


pleasure of a good laugh now and then. One of the best can be
had while reading E.P, Evan's account in Popular Science
Monthly, titled "A Survival of Medieval Credulity", MarchApril, 1900, p. 577.
46Ibid.
AmericanAtheist

Catholic presses continued to grind out Taxi!'s fantastic


literature for the church-going gullible when he and BatailleHacks began publication of The Devil in the Nineteenth

Century. This literary fantasy told the story of Albert Pike,


residing in Charleston,
South Carolina, whom the book called "the satanic pope".
The real Pike was a colorful and controversial figure in the
history of the craft. Pike served as a general in the
Confederate Army during the Civil War; after mustering
out, he developed an interest in Masonry and ancient
languages (it was reported he was fluent in some two dozen
tongues, many of them considered" dead languages"). He
rose within Freemasonry to become grand commander of
the Scottish Rite; and head of the Southern Jurisdiction in
the United States.
Taxil and Bataille named Albert Pike as head of a
mysterious Lucderian conspiracy known as the New
Paladian Rite, headquartered in Charleston, S.c. with
affiliated temples in Washington, Rome, Montevideo, Naples and Calcutta. Taxil also fantasized a device (years
before the invention of radio) where Pike could communicate with his masonic stooges throughout the world at the
touch of a button; the satanic pope even had a bracelet to
summon Lucifer for consultation at any time:" "One day
Satan took Pike gently in his arms and made a trip with him
to Sirius", wrote Taxil, "traversing the whole distance in a
few minutes. After exploring the fixed star, he was brought
back safe and sound to his room in Washington ....
The Devil also told of a labyrinth of underground
a Grand Master of Freemasonry

rr

laboratories
beneath the cliffs of Gibralter, staffed by
mischievous demons under the leadership of one TubalCain. Here, Satan's chemists worked around the clock
concocting
flus and epidemics to be spread amongst
christians everywhere. (Tubal-Cain, by the way, reportedly
spoke fluent French.) And more fantasy: in the town of
Freiburg, Switzerland was to be found a masonic temple
hewn out of rock for use during the satanic mass. Naked
men and women engaged in irreligious and erotic outrages,
including stabbing holy wafers which had been stolen by
jews from catholic churches.
The spicy comedy was not complete, however, without
one Miss Diana Vaughn, whom T axil presented to society
as a descendant
of the Rosicrucian alchemist Thomas
Vaughn.wf'he lady claimed to possess a signed contract
between her famous ancestor and satan himself, dated
March 25,1625. Miss Vaughn was supposedly born in Paris
on February 29, 1874-a most ingenious feat, considering
that in that particular year there was no February 29.
Having been raised on strictly Luciferian principles, she
purportedly
one day expressed
doubt to her satanic
mentors as to the worthiness of Cain and Abel as paragons
of diabolical virtue. It was quickly ascertained
that the
youngster was possessed by the christian angel Raphael,
and in need of immediate exorcism, lest she fall prey to the
47Itis fascinating to see what portions of the Taxil-Bataille farce
survive today, accepted by fools. The Christian Defense
League offers for sale a two-cassette collection titled "History
of the Illuminati" where the tales of the New Paladian Rite are
given credence; so is the Taxil creation of Albert Pike using
radio, although the outlandish story of the devil-summoning
bracelet is not.
48See Mackay, p. 189.
Austin, Texas

one, true god. Exorcism was performed, "the whole process


of which, as described by Taxil ... a clever travesty of the
ceremonial
prescribed
by the Romish church for the
expulsion of evil spirits .... " In any case, the ritual was a
success and "Raphael" was driven out.
Few, if any within official catholicism, grasped the humor
in Taxil's devastating parody on Leo's "Exorcisimus in
Satanam et Angelos Spostatas", issued by the pope in 1890.
Her body restored to health, Miss Vaughn was placed in
the care of Asmodeus, one of the major satanic functionaries. The demon sometimes approached her in the form of
a handsome suitor emitting the strong aroma of balsam. He
escorted her on pleasure trips and short jaunts to purgatory, even wisking her to the planet Mars where the two
visited Schiaparelli's canals and strolled amongst the pygmie inhabitants of the Red Planet.
Throughout
this entire episode, catholics everywhere
gorged themselves with such incredulous fabrications, all
spun by the poker-faced Taxil and his collaborator,
Dr.
Bataille. The catholic journalThe Month49 wrote glowingly
of Taxi's conversion to the church and his subsequent
revelations about Masonry, noting that "an instance of
conversion as that of Leo Taxil ought to at least encourage
us to hope that there may be many such."
In fact, T axil had fooled all christiandom: "My colleagues
were aghast and exclaimed 'You'll spoil the whole joke with
your nonsense!' 'Bah', I replied, 'let me be and you will see!"
Taxil promoted his Complete Revelations and The Devil
until 1897, when public pressure demanded the persona of
Miss Diana Vaughn, the reformed Luciferian. Taxi! called a
press conference on April 19; mounting the platform before
the assembled reporters and observers, he confessed his
ruse to a bewildered public->" After thanking the clergy for
their aid in carrying out his scheme and attributing their
cooperation chiefly to ignorance and imbecility, he escaped
amidst much confusion.">?
Yet this revelation-that
Taxil the Convert was, in
reality, the same old Taxil, who had hoaxed and sat ired
religion before-did
not serve to convince all true believers.
One catholic writer maintained that the man who called the
press conference was really an impostor, and that Masons
had kidnapped the real T axil. Still another insisted that
Diana Vaughn failed to appear because Freemasons
had
bribed T axil into placing her in a lunatic asylum. The
Pelican, another catholic magazine, still supported Taxil's
revelations about devil-worship and Masonry, insisting that
Freemasons, jews, Luciferians and their comrades carried
out many of the attrocities described by T axil and Bataille.1t
was further asserted that in July 1897, jews absconded with
consecrated wafers from a church in Silesia, whereupon the
plot was uncovered by a Polish nobleman.
Thus ended one of the great literary hoaxes in history, a
battle of pen and wits which the church clearly lost. Taxi!
returned to the anti-clerical movement, being recorded in
the Catholic Encyclopedia as "one of the most notorious
religious hoaxers of the nineteenth century."

***
The linkage of Freemasonry

with the most bizarre rituals

49See The Month, published in London, Vol. LXIX, MayAugust 1890, article titled "Leo Taxi!".
50See Curtis D. MacDougall, Hoaxes (New York: Macmillan
Co., 1941) p. 100.

March,1982

Page 13

and practices, at least in the christian imagination, was


cemented still further by yet another spurious collection of
writings known as the Protocols of the Learned Elders of
Zion. The Protocols are taunted as a masterplan hatched at
a secret meeting of zionists in 1897, held in Berne,
Switzerland. Depending on whose account one reads, the
meeting was run by jews, Masons, Luciferians, the Illuminati, international
bankers, or other un-touchable
types.
With the intent of bringing about the decay of christian
civilization, the Protocols pledge:
... to corrupt the young generation
by subversive
education, dominate people through their vices, destroy family life, undermine respect for religion, encourage luxury, amuse people to prevent them from
thinking, poison the spirit by destructive theories,
weaken human bodies by inoculation with microbes,
foment international hatred and prepare for universal
bankruptcy and concentration of gold in the hands of
the jews."51
Since their inception, the Protocols have been incendiary
fuel for everyone from Nazis to fundamentalist christians.
Hitler mentions the Protocols in Mein Kampf, maintaining
the existence of a jewish plot against christianity, in league
with Freemasonry.
The Protocols are actually a plagarism of an early tract
called Dialogues in the Underworld Between Machiavelli
and Montesquieu, penned in 1865 by Maurice Jouly as a
satire on Napoleon III. The evolution of these Dialogues into
the Protocols, with appropriate additions and rewritings is
less important here than is the fact that they are, like Taxil's
creations, historical forgeries.
Given human credulity, it is not surprising that the
mythology of the Protocols, the revelations of T axil-Bataille,
the fantasies of Barruel and Robison, and other assorted
tales about Masonry and Illuminism persist to this very day.
Little objective, scholarly work has been done, in this
century, on the Illuminists, although there are over 10,000
pieces on Freemasonry. Taxil's satire is still taken seriously
by segments of the christian community such as the
Cinema Educational
Guild and the Christian Defense
League; several popular books in right-wing circles still
repeat the more bizarre tales of The Devil in the Nineteenth
Century, and claim to link the defunct Order of the
Illuminati to events today. More than two centuries after the
founding of the Order, there is more fiction than fact to
represent its philosophy, its accomplishments,
its aspirations and its demise .

IEIPIT[L@(JJ1E
What then can we say of Illuminism and Freemasonry
from the Atheist perspective?
Certainly, it was in Freemasonry that much of the Atheism and deism of the
Enlightenment was nurtured. The metaphors of creating
new edifices from raw, unfinished stone, of crafting and
transforming
the world to create new structures
were
themes which intertwined with the whole spirit of the
Enlightenment. Ironically, it was when this philosophy was
kept most secret and subjugated to the most conspiratorial
organizational
forms, that it failed. Despite Weishaupt's
carefully laid plans, the Order of the Illuminati did not and
could not succeed.
51Ibid., p. 201.
Page 14

In a period of almost total church seizure of all political,


economic and cultural institutions, Atheism was sheltered
in countless lodge and sect meetings. Today, Masonry
(particularly in the United States) has decayed to the status
of a social club." having lost its revolutionary character,
becoming a symbol of the bourgeoisie. It is somewhat more
radical in Europe, especially in France, where the Grand
Orient readily admits Atheists into masonic membership.
The Vatican, in March, 1981, resurrected
the entire question of Freemasonry
when it again warned catholics that
they risk excommuncation
for joining lodges. Not surprisingly, the statement was issued by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Holy
Office, and known before that as the Inquisition. The
papacy thus upheld the condemnation
of eight popes in the
church's struggle against Freemasonry,
who condemned
the craft in over 400 Bulls and other documents. All seem to
echo the charge of Leo XIII that Masonry was aiming at "the
overthrow of the whole religious, political and social order
based on Christian institutions, and the establishment of a
state of things based on pure naturalism .... " The conservative and far right factions within the church, led by
renegade Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, claim that some
prelates within the church are secretly members of the
craft.
The role of groups such as the Illuminati during the
Enlightenment has often received only footnoted mention
or passing reference in historical writings on the period.
Albert Soboul in The French Revolution, 1787-1799 mentions the lodges only in passing, but claims that "the really
significant feature of the masonic movement in France at
this time was that it had no ideological unity and no
revolutionary fervour ... "53A thorough account of masonic
involvement with Enlightenment
and post-Enlightenment
history has yet to be written.
James Billington, in Fire in the Minds of Men devotes
more space than any other contemporary
historian to
Masonry and Illuminism and their role in revolutionary
politics. Unfortunately, the most seminal segments are in a
chapter titled 'The Occult Origins of Organization".
His
bibliography for this section is indispensable in serving at
least as a starting point in tracing the roots of Atheist
thought through the lodges and sects of the time.
While a number of right -wing christian groups continue to
sound the. alarm against imaginary Illuminists, some primary source material on the Order has been reprinted.
Vernon Stauffer's New England and the Bavarian Illuminati
was originally published in 1918, but was re-issued in 1967.
In 1969, Culture et Civilisation, a publishing house in
Brussels reprinted from the original Adam Weishaupt's
analysis of Kantian philosophy. The same year Laforestier's
exhaustive history of the Order, Les Illumines de Bauariere
et la Franc-Maconnerie allemande was reprinted in Swit-

Cont'd on p.26
52Some lodges in Italy have even become vehicles for the
establishment of authoritarian, right -wing coups. In May, 1981,
the Italian government uncovered a plot with lodge "Propaganda Due" to seize control of the state. Implicated were
intelligence officers, military figures, members of parliament,
bankers and "Ieading Italians".
55ee Denis Pichet and Francois Furet, The French Revolution
(New York: Macmillan Co., 1970).

March, 1982

.American Atheist

,
\

,J

OF LEBANON AND "LEBENSRAUM": THE CONTINUING


QUEST FOR "GREATER ISRAEL"
by
H..l. Skutel
Our fathers had reached the frontiers which were recognized in
the Partition Plan. Our generation reached the frontiers of 1949.
Now the six-day generation has managed to reach Suez. Jordan
and the Golan Heights. This is not the end. After the present
cease-fire lines. there will be new ones. They will extend beyond
Jordan-perhaps to Lebanon and perhaps to central Syria as well.
-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan
in the Israel Weekly Ha'olam
Hazeh. Cited in the London
j
Times. June 25, 1969.

In the aftermath of Israel's several wars with its Arab


neighbors, the leaders of the Jewish State have consistently
argued that territory conquered and since retained has been
done so for reasons of national security-that is, to obtain
so-called "defensible borders" or "strategic depth" or to
deprive Palestinian Arab "terrorists" of staging areas for
attacks on Israeli settlements. This position was most recently advanced by Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin in a
Sept. 12 meeting in New York City with Alexander Haig, at
which time the latter was informed that Israeli control of
the occupied territories was a matter of "life and death" for
the Jewish State.
What is not generally understood is that the movement
known as political Zionism-whose supreme manifestation
is the State of Israel-has coveted South Lebanon for at
least sixty years; or, in other words, for a period considerably antedating the onset of the Palestinian "problem"
in 1948 and the creation in 1958 ofF ateh. the main guerrilla
organization.
Maps produced by the Zionists have always included
'Lebanon-at the very least to the port of Sidon-as part of
"Greater Israel" or, as it is more commonly called, Eretz
Israel ("the Land of Israel"). Both terms-not to be confused with "the State of Israel" as it is presently constituted
-refers, in large part, to the vast territory stretching from
the "River of Egypt" (according to most biblical scholars
the Wadi EI-Arish in the Sinai) to the Euphrates, which
God, in three separate passages in the Pentateuch, defines
as the future Jewish homeland.
It was only Big Power opposition at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 which caused South Lebanon to be excluded
from the Jewish "national home" promised by the British to
the Zionist leadership in the 1917 Balfour Declaration. "We
did not know that France had designs on the Levant," exclaimed the distraught Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann,
"and thought we could include the whole of the area in the
Jewish National Home."?
In a position paper entitled "On Ways Of Our Policy"
presented to an international congress of Labor Zionists in
Zurich in July 1937, David Ben-Gurion, destined to be
Israel's first Prime Minister, declared that South Lebanon
I

Austin, Texas

Southern Lebanon is a vital space for the Jewish State.


- Foreign Minister Yigal Allon
while visiting Israel's northern border on Dec. 31, 1976.
Quoted in Israel & Palestine,
A Monthly Review (Paris), Feb.
1977.

was part of "the Land of Israel",' and then later, as an influential former Head of State, advised Prime Minister
Moshe Sharett on ways to destabilize Lebanon to better
realize Zionism's territorial ambitions there. In a letter to
Sharett dated Feb. 27, 1954, Ben-Gurion wrote:
The creation of a Christian State ... would find support in
wide circles in the Christian world, both Catholic and Protestant. In normal times this would be almost impossible.
First and foremost because of the lack of initiative and
courage of the Christians. But at times of confusion, or
revolution or civil war, things take on another aspect, and
even the weak declares himselfto be a hero. Perhaps ... now
is the time to bring about the creation of a Christian State in
our neighborhood. Without our initiative and our vigorous
aid this will not be done. It seems to me that this is the
central duty ... of our foreign policy. This means that time,
energy and means ought to be invested in it and we must act
in all possible ways to bring about a radical change in
Lebanon.'
,:~

It must be recalled that Israel's involvement in South


Lebanon was facilitated, in part, by the absence of a permanent, internationally recognized border between the two
countries. As a member of the Arab League, Lebanon had
participated in the 1948/49 war against the fledgling Jewish
State and what separated the two, as stipulated in the 1949
Rhodes Armistice Agreements, was a highly permeable
cease-fire line. This situation applies to the rest of Israel's
neighbors and will only change when permanent peace
treaties with them are signed and ratified-as was the case
with Egypt in March 1979. *
*On Nov. 9, following a widely publicized intrusion of Saudi
Arabian airspace by Israeli warplanes, an unidentified U.S.
official was quoted as saying: "They (the Israelis) operate in the
area a lot of times. They don't pay attention to boundaries."
(Montreal Gazette. Nov. to, 1981, p. 12). Some idea ofthe Zionist
contempt for the territorial integrity of Lebanon, in particular,
may be obtained from the following statement by IDF spokesman
Brig. Gen. Yaakov Even, in the New York Times, April 18, 1981:
"We are on the offensive. We are the aggressors. We are penetrating the so-called border of the so-called state of Lebanon, and
we go after them [the PLO) wherever they hide." (My emphasis.)

March,1982

Page 15

Encouraged by tensions between Syria and Iraq in 1954,


which made it seem propitious for undertaking the intervention in Lebanon suggested by Ben-Gurion, then military
Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan proposed the following plan to
a joint meeting of senior officials of the Israeli Defense and
Foreign Affairs ministries, which Moshe Sharett recorded
in his diary in a May 16 entry:

highly-regarded Israeli journalist has suggested that a desire for the water resources of the occupied West Bank was
possibly "the true reason, so far unknown, for the eruption
ofthe Six Day War."!
The Litani has now greater significance than ever for
Israel which is in the midst of a water crisis. "We are
already using 100 per cent of ali our water," Ze'ev Hagali,
director of the Israel Water Works Association has
been quoted as saying." Israel's total water consumption is
now about 1.6 billion cubic meters per year and it is estimated that it will require an additional 400-450 million
cubic meters by 1990 if it is to avoid diverting water from
agriculture-a
move which could have a potentially
calamitous impact on Israel's trade balance and its plans
for population dispersion. According to the knowledgeable
American journalist John Cooley, in an ominous conclusion
to an article in the London bi-weekly Middle East Inter-

Accordingtohim[Dayan]the onlything that's necessaryisto


find an officer,evenjust a Major. We should either win his
heart or buy him with money,to make him agree to declare
himself the savior of the Maronite population. Then the
Israeli army will enter Lebanon, will occupythe necessary
territory, and willcreate a Christian regimewhichwill ally
itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southward
willbe totallyannexedto Israel. .. 5
There is nothing arbitrary in Dayan's designating the
Litani River as the projected northern border of Israel.
Biblical or ideological considerations aside, the Zionist
movement from as far back as the days of founder Theodor
Herzl, at the turn of the century, envisioned the use of the
Litani and the headwaters of the Jordan River in South
Lebanon-then under Ottoman control-to generate electricity and to irrigate the future Jewish "national home" in
Palestine. Writing to Lord Curzon on Oct. 30, 1920, Chaim
Weizmann inveighed against any "wanton mutilation ofthe
Palestinian frontiers" and tried frantically to impress on the
British Foreign Secretary the necessity for having the Litani
included within the borders of the draft Mandate:
Your Lordship, I am sure, realizes the enormous importanceof theLitani to Palestine.Evenif the wholeof the
Jordan and the Yarmuk are includedin Palestine,it has in:"
sufficientwater for its needs. The summer.in Palestine is
extremelydry, and evaporationrapid and intense. The irrigation of upper Galileeand the powernecessaryfor even a
limitedindustrial life must come from the Litani. ... For if
Palestinewere cut off from the Litani, Upper Jordan, and
Yarmuk, to say nothing of the eastern shore of [the sea oil
Galilee, it could not be economicallyindependent. And a
poor and impoverishedPalestinecould be of no advantage
to any power. (Myemphasis.)
In 1937, the Lowdermilk Plan, signed by an American
hydraulics engineer, but written in part by Shlomo Gur, a
Zionist water expert, proposed a scheme for the diversion of
the Litani's waters into what is present-day Israel. Studies
done in the 1950's and later for UNRWA and by certain
private bodies, suggested ways Israel and its neighbors
might jointly exploit the region's major water systems-the
Litani, Yarmuk (in Syria), and Jordan. These plans were
never implemented because the parties concerned could not
agree on how, and in what proportions, the water should be
allocated among them and because of the antagonism and
abiding mistrust engendered by repeated Israeli-Arab confrontations. Nevertheless, as Yoram Nimrod an Israeli
authority on this subject points out: "The basic assumption
of the Israelis was that the waters of the region must not be
allowed to go to waste, and that in engineering terms hydrographical boundaries are meaningless."
Indeed, one
Page 16

national,

Published studies in Israel predict that Israel will have to


find at least one new major water source by not later than
1990. The onlytwosuch sourcesin the area so far untapped
by Israel are the Yarmuk and the Litani.... What worries
Israel's neighbors... is that. . .Israel's plans all seem to involvesecuring a share of their water, one way or another.
This is the stuff of which future Middle East wars are
made.'?

Israel has today found the "Major" spoken of by Moshe


Dayan in the person of 46-year-old renegade Lebanese
Army officer Saad Haddad, whose militia of 1,500 rightwing Maronite Christians is paid, clothed, armed, and advised by the Israelis. ,
Following its first invasion of South Lebanon in March
1978, Israel, instead of withdrawing completely ~ was required by U.N. Security Council resolutions 425 and 426
and handing over control of the area to UNIFIL, delivered
over to Major Haddad a frontier zone five miles wide and
sixty miles long. Here, in April 1979, Haddad established
his "Republic of Free Lebanon" whose flag has a green
cedar beside a blue Star of David. I 1 His militia has been
accused of attacking U.N. troops and shelling villages that
cooperate with the peace-keeping force whose authority he
refuses to recognize. 12
The commencement of the cease-fire between Israel and
the PLO on July 24, realized through the discreet
. mediation of the Saudis, was received with unconcealed
gloom and exasperation by leading Israeli generals (e.g.,
Eitan, Ben-Gal, Baram) who, like Director of Israeli's
Foreign Ministry David Kimche, felt "the obvious thing"
for Israel was to have "finished off' the PLO "once and for
all."il Not surprisingly, Israel's super-hawk Defense
Minister is also chafing under the restraints of a cease-fire
which has only served to enhance the PLO's diplomatic
stature and credibility. Hardly two weeks after cessation of
hostilities, Hirsh Goodman, Military Correspondent for the
Jerusalem Post, had these lowering words to offer concerning Sharon's analysis of the "problem in Lebanon":

March,1982

American Atheist

There, the gradual Syrian expansion (the Christians have


lost about SO per cent of their territory to the Syrians over
the' past five years), the missile crisis and the terrorist prob. lem are all linked. They cannot and should not be viewed as
separate problems.
Israel will have to deal with all three of these threats in a
cohesive manner, he believes, but he is reluctant to spell out
precisely what he means.
By implication, however, it appears that Sharon perceives
the Syrians as the main factor in Lebanon, and it is the
Syrians who will have to be dealt with in order to resolve all
the problems if and when a decision is made to do so. ,.*

Beginning Sept. 17,and extending into early October,


Lebanon was shaken by a series of devastating car-bomb
attacks directed largely at the offices and businesses of PLO
officials and supporters. At least 137 were killed and
hundreds more wounded-mostly pedestrians. A "little
known" group calling itself the Front for the Liberation of
Lebanon from Foreigners claimed responsibility. Despite
Israeli denials and the patriotic ring to the organization's
name, few in Lebanon have any doubts as to the source
from whence this group draws its ideological and military
sustenance. As Lebanon's Sunni Moslem Prime Minister,
Shafik Wazzan, sees it:

warrior." Coming from one who has distinguished himself


as a chief architect of Zionist expansion, and who argued as
late as four years ago that the Israeli army "must occupy
and be stationed permanently in southern Lebanon up to
the Litani River", \8 these words seem more anticipatory
than apprehensive.
Although the purpose of the cease-fire was to halt Israeli
air attacks on Lebanon, rocket and artillery exchanges
across the frontier, and shooting into (or out of) Haddad's
Christian enclave, the Israelis have unilaterally, it would
seem, expanded the agreement to include all acts of resistance against Israel proper and in the occupied territories, and acts of terrorism against Jews abroad." Now it
must be obvious to anyone familiar with Sharett's diaries,
wherein a policy of provocation is blatantly espoused, that
investing the agreement with such a wide lattitude of interpretation inevitably affords Mossad and Phalangist elements in Lebanon myriad opportunities to undermine it. As
Khaled Fahoum, chairman of the Palestine National
Council, the highest body of the PLO, somewhat resignedly
told interviewer Norma Tahrir in a left-wing weekly:
Because we have had a very bitter experience with the
Israelis in the past, we don't think the cease-fire will last
long. This is the nature of Israel. 20

Israel, which has been prevented from launching further air


attacks on Lebanon, now has resorted to other methods for
which it is either directly responsible or by using its agents
in Lebanon. 15

At the time of this writing, several developments are conspiring to ensure a prime place for the Lebanese imbroglio
within the context of the ongoing Israeli-Arab contlict.
On Nov. 30, as Philip Habib was presumably trying to
More or less in tandem with the detonations was an in- strengthen the July 24 cease-fire in Lebanon, Israel signed
tensive Israeli propaganda campaign designed to discredit an ambiguously worded "strategic cooperation" agreement
the PLO and convince world opinion that they were with Washington, pledging both parties to make common
breaking the cease-fire by augmenting their firepower in cause against threats to the region's "peace and security"
South Lebanon-an argument subsequently repudiated by from the Soviet Union. Unless there are secret provisions in
"U.S. sources in Israel" who
the pact, it will provide Israel with none of the guarantees
asserted firmly that the PLO's introduction of heavy
it has sought for direct U.S. military assistance in the event
weapons into the areas under its control is not a violation of
of another Israeli-Arab war. If anything, the pact has conthe cease-fire (formally called "the cessation of hostilities")
tributed to the Jewish State's insecurity by placing it in
which was negotiated for South Lebanon by [U.S. presidangerous opposition to one of the superpowers and antagdential envoy Philip Habib].
onising
Syria, which has a 20-year "friendship and cooperaThe American sources insisted that Begin had been told
tion"
treaty
with the Soviet Union. But, as the Jerusalem
clearly during the cease-fire negotiations that a ban on inPost's
military
correspondent Hirsh Goodman points out,
troducing additional weapons was not part of the accordall
of
this
was
anticipated
before the agreement with Washand Begin had signed in that knowledge. ,.
ington was signed. Consequently, the Israeli "defense estabA notable promulgator of this line was the late Moshe . lishment" and government are growing increasingly appreDyan who told a New York City synagogue audience on hensive about the projected rate of Arab military spending
Sept. 14 that the PLO was "digging in" with reinforcements
($70 billion over the next eight years) which, they claim,
across the northern border. "If the PLO resume firing and
along with the AWACS and F-1S enhancement package to
shelling Israeli settlements across the border, by God, the
the Saudis, will shift the balance of power decisively in favor
whole thing is going to blow up," declared the sickly ex- of the Arabs. Realization of this is nurturing "a growing
school of thought that drastic action is needed." Goodman
elaborates:
*In a speech before the Knesset on May 11, 1981, Menachem
Begin stated that one of the points of "common agreement" between the U.S. and Israel, which had emerged in earlier talks in
April between him and Alexander Haig, " .. .involves the attitude
taken to the Syrian role in Lebanon. The U.S. sees things as Israel
does. Syria is no longer a peace-keeping force nor a stabilizing
one." (from an Israeli Government Press Office release cited in
Israleft Hi-weekly News Service (Jerusalem), May 19, 1981, p. 6).

What this drastic action may be remains a matter of speculation, but one possibility is the escalation of localized
conflict-s-such as tension in Lebanon--into a full-scale
battle designed to redress the balance of power by drawing
Syria and other confrontation states into contlict. While
such a move would have serious international repercussions,

March,1982

Austin, Texas

rl

Page 17

there are those- who see the ramifications as a lesser evil


than aIlowing the current process to continue unchecked."
Again, in light of the expressed Arab desire to "bring
Egypt back into the fold" following the Sinai pullout in
April (for which there is mounting opposition in Israel),
Menachem Begin is being urged to test the resiliency of
Mubarak's professed friendship for Israel by attacking the
PLO in South Lebanon.
If she [Egypt) restricts herself to verbal criticism, if she
doesn't actively join the hue and cry in the U.N. for the inevitable condemnation, it may mean that the Egypt of
Mubarak wiIl foIlow the Camp David process. If, however,
she alligns herself with the Arab family of nations, it wiIIbe
incumbent on Begin to cancel the return of the remaining
Sinai territory. II
Habib has returned .to Washington, his departure from
the Middle East overshadowed by Syria's understandable
refusal to remove its SAM-6 anti-aircraft
missiles=-deployed in Lebanon's Beka Valley and guarding a possible
invasion route to Damascus-which
Begin and Sharon have
heretofore threatened to destroy.
. Should the cease-fire collapse, Israel may execute a combined air, land, and amphibious assault on South Lebanon.
Undertaken ostensibly for military and "security" reasons,
or to rescue Israel's right-wing Maronite allies from an imminent "Nazi-style genocide", it will represent for the
Jewish State's nationalist extremists another long-awaited
step towards fulfillment of the Scriptural covenant. In his
regular column in the militantly Zionist New York newspaper The Jewish Press, Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the
Jewish Defense League and its Israeli counterpart KACH,
who now lives on the occupied West Bank, writes:
Lebanon, until [sic) the Litani River, is according to all
authorities, part of the Biblical borders of the Holy Land,
promised to the Jewish people. For legal and logical
reasons; for reasons of survival-we must go in, liberate it
from the enemy, crush them once and for all. and make it
part of the Jewish State. That is the only way. There is no
other."

8. Yehuda Litani, Ha'aretz, Nov. 27,1978.


9. Quoted in Yitzhak Oked, "Drip By Drip", Jerusalem Post
(Int. Ed.), May 31-June 6, 1981.
to. "Jordan And The Politics Of Water", Jan. 30, 1981. p. 11.
11. W. Claiborne & J.e. Randal, "Haddad: Lebanon's King Of
The South", Montreal Gazette. March 25,1981, p. 30.
12. Marvine Howe, "Christian Marauders Hamper U.N.'s Lebanon Force", New York Times. Dec. 24, 1978.
13. Quoted in David K. Shipler, New York Times. July 31, 1981.
p.A3.
14. "The Sharon Scenario",Jerusalem Post (Int. Ed.), Sept. 6-12,
1981.
15. AP dispatch (Beirut), Montreal Gazette. Oct. 2, 1981.
16. "Habib Heading For Mideast In Bid To Ease 'Rising Tension' ",Jerusalem Post (Int. Ed.), Nov. 22-28, 1981, p. 1.
17. Heather Hill, "Mideast 'could blow up': Dayan", Montreal
Gazette. Sept. 15,1981, p. 4.
_
18. Moshe Dayan, "The Good Wall And The Green Line",
YediotAharonot. March 15,1977.
19. "PLO Has Broken Cease-fire 43 Times", Jerusalem Post
(Int. Ed.), Sept. 20-26, 1981, p. 8.
20. "Israelis Want Arab Surrender", The Guardian (New York),
. Sept. 16, 1981.
21. "Strategic Cooperation Snags", Jerusalem Post (Int. Ed.),
Nov. 29-Dec. 5,1981, p. 4.
22. Columnist Hyman S. Frank, The Jewish Press. Nov. 20,1981,
p.33.
23. "Tragedy In Lebanon", August 14, 1981, p. 18.

.----LEBANON

AND "LEBENSRAUM"

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


H.J. Skutel is a Canadian teacher of Jewish background. He studies journalism at New York Unlvenity, holds an M.A. in history from McGill and
. has lectured in poUticaI science at Concordia Unlvenity in Montreal.
,:-.
Middle East PenpecdYe, JanWU')' 1982

REFERENCES
1. Wolf Blitzer, "The Strategy Deal With Israel", Jerusalem
Post (Int. Ed.), Sept. 13-19,1981.
2. Cited in G. Bowder, H. Maalouf, D. Tayara, "Israel's Creeping Annexation", The Middle East (London), April 1981, p.
53.
3. Cited in Israel Shahak, "The 'Historical Right' And The
Other Holocaust", Journal Of Palestine Studies. Spring 1981,
p.30.
4. Cited in Livia Rokach, Israel's Sacred Terrorism (Assoc. of
Arab-American University Graduates, Inc., Belmont, Mass.,
1980)p.25.
5. Cited in/bid .. p. 28.
6. The Letters And Papers of Chaim Weizmann. M.W.
Weisgal, Ed., Vol. X, Series A (Transaction Books, Rutgers
University, 1977) pp. 76-77.
7. "The Jordan's Angry Waters", New Outlook (Tel-Aviv), July/
August 1965, p. ~1.
.
Page 18

March,1982

IF YOU ARE GA Y AND ATHEIST


PLEASE CONTACT:
Gay Atheists League of America
P.O. Box 14142
San Francisco, CA 94114
Membership: $1S.00/year
($lO.OO/year for students and senior citizens)
Send to the same address for subscriptions
to the GALA
Review. Subscriptions $lO.OO/year; $ll.50/year in Canada
and PUAS; elsewhere $12.50/year.

American Atheist

On Our Way
Ignatz Sahula-Dycke

THE THOUGHTLESS
AND THE DAMNED
The sum total of the following statement says that the
topmost stratum of humanity is damned to think. But is it
damned naturally, or by design? Let's look at the rubric
above that bottom line and see what we can learn about
this. Ifcareful, and able to distinguish between the facts and
the hearsay scrambled within those upper lines, we might
learn something of value to the existence we've all been
chancilv fated to experience.
The overweeningly pietistic religionism by which Americans who read, listen to radio, and watch television are
constantly assailed nowadays, betrays through everything
it says as well as through everything it ignores, that it's
pretty much the same stew it was in the middle of the 19th
century. At that time, within a year or two after 1858 when
Europe's theologers were panicked by Darwin's Origin of
Species, the hucksters of christianist persuasion were everywhere (except here in our United States where the book
was largely ignored) assiduously busy trying to plug the
leaks made by this book in their time-worn system of
protective dikes.
Please reflect that until the last two or three decades of
the 18th century, and throughout all Europe, the mental
attitude of the majority of Europeans could be summed up
in but one terse sentence; namely: You're born to labor
unprotestingly for your emperor or king, honor the priesthoods, and humbly pray to your religion's god, begging his
forgiveness for any thoughts or hopes you might entertain
for relief or possible release from this condition, in order to
deserve, after death, the joys of your religion's promised life
in heaven. Isn't it therefore in retrospect scandalous that
American citizens liberated in 1776 from enslavement by
this kind of an outlook, are again being jollied by fanatical
religious preachers and political demagogues to ask for its
return in order to once again patiently suffer it?
In this presently existing predicament the question
begging an answer is: By whom and by what means were
Europe's millions induced to submit to an outlook so outrageously self-effacing and bleak? It was all contrived
through the false promises of heaven and the fear of god
inculcated by christianist cupidity. So, although Western
humanity's march out of religious enslavement really began
when the American colonists declared their independence
in 1776, and the people of France in 1787, the people of
Austria-Hungary, Germany, Italy, czarist Russia and a
dozen lesser nations didn't realize it until during and shortly
followingworld war one. Today, as mentioned, the religious
enclave is-as always-again trying to inveigle the masses
back into the intellectual thralldom from which they so
recently managed to escape .
.Now, for what reason did the common people of Europe
follow our lead and finally rebel against the system of
existence they for nearly a thousand previous years
patiently endured? It seems reasonable to think they
Austin, Texas

rebelled because, in watching our American colonists, they


realized that here was something that they themselves
could do, and that it provided those who'd dare it with an
opportunity for governing themselves as they desired, and
no longer according to the clerically prescribed desires of
the emperors and kings whom the popes of Rome had for
centuries been appointing to tyrannically and exploitatively
rule them. In other words, our American colonists showed
the world's peoples the advantages innate in selfgovernment-in
a government completely unaffected by
religious opinions of biblical origin.
Naturally, once the British colonists of America, and the
people of France made their separate moves for liberation,
and parted from the kings (George IIIand Louis XIV) who
until then exploited them, the two ventures reverberated
throughout every nation of Europe. But although the
American colonists owed much of their yearning and drive
for independence to the theorizing which before 1776 had
been done on this score by thinkers like Locke, Hume,
Bentham, Jefferson, Paine, and others, it's hard to deny
that the colonists were encouraged by the idealistic thinking
rife on the continent itself before Hegel appeared and deftly
thematized it.
It's also credible that the views of Fichte, Strauss, Bauer
and others played a part in steadying the colonists during
the early years of the nineteenth century. Bauer, for
example-an atheistic monist-wanted a state wholly freeof religion, and with this for a goal he energetically criticized
biblical fundamentalism from which he saw sourcing all
political as well as religious tyranny.
This new crop of Germany's idealistic Atheists revealed
the extent to which religious opinions were affecting
political decisions not only in Germany but in all of Europe.
The long abeyant revolution in France grew largely out of
the combined speculations of many thinkers. Besides
Rousseau, Sieyes, Saint-Simon, Condorcet, and Montesquieu, still others in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century had quickened their countrymen with a
vision of a state and government guided by reason, and no
longer by kings who ruled "by grace of god."
Because of these unprecedented events, reasoning now
began to playa greater part in politics than religious advice,
and whether disseminated in English, French or German
had a sledgehammer impact in every corner of Europe. It
sharpened demand for changes that after 1848 transformed
most of the existing European monarchies into constitutionally governed states far more liberal than ever before.
Of course, even these changes were but half-measures that
failed to satisfy those who, like Bauer, despised compromise.
These chagrined hopefuls now made up the van of the
waves of immigrants who came from Europe to our United
States in ever-increasing numbers during the last half of the

March,1982

Page 19

nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth century.


During the seventy-five years between 1845 and 1920,
approximately thirty-five million Europeans emigrated to
the United States-a force that vitalized our industrial East,
and made the great plains of the middle West an agricultural
paradise.

This briefly-sketched picture of the intellectual ferment


active during the 18th and 19th centuries, including the
political changes it engendered, shows that the power of
reason is sufficiently potent to overcome and win against
even the overwhelming odds that organized and institution-

alized religions have always-especially when threatened


by change-thrown against it. As exemplified historically by
Rome and Greece, people of differing characteristics and
interests have for centuries been reconciled by the power of
reason and, in this way, made aware of their responsibilities
to themselves and to one another.
In these days of anxiety due to the Bomb, it's comforting
to realize that not in politics, not in religion, not in force of
arms, not in diplomacy, but in atheistic reasoning alone
rests the common denominator for solving any of the
current or future problems of man.

The Angry Young Atheist


Jeff Frankel

CHAMPIONS WITHOUT CHRIST


Due to the often upside down priorities our society has the criteria for major league success. But, I guess I never
developed, professional athletes have become some of the will."
In the midst of all this proselytizing and apathy, it's
most admired and influential people in our nation. If you
refreshing to find out that there are some athletes who have
excel in a specific field of athletic endeavor, you suddenly
become very important. Reporters beg to speak to you. no more use for christianity than for a worn-out jock strap:
Corporations offer you ridiculous sums of money to I've discovered two who are among the greatest sports
endorse their products. Regardless of your intellectual figures of recent years.
Bob Gibson was a great pitcher for the St. Louis
capacity, your words are looked upon by many, especially
Cardinals from 1959 to 1975. He compiled 251 victories and
impressionable young people, as words of wisdom.
Naturally, many athletic celebrities have seized upon this 3117 strikeouts during his spectacular career. His 1.12
open forum to express their beliefs on subjects having earned run average in 1968 set a record that many experts
nothing to do with sports. As always, the "born-again" (one feel will never be broken. Bob led St. Louis to three
of the great nonsensical terms of all time) christians step pennants and two world championships, winning seven
forward to tell the world about the lord. These athletes World Series games, and setting a Series record with 17
invariably give credit for their sporting successes to "the strikeouts in one game. He was inducted into baseball's Hall
. almighty god, who makes all things possible."
of Fame in 198~, one of only 11 players to be elected to the
Former major league baseball pitcher Jim Bouton, in his shrine on his first year of eligibility.
In the book Stealing Is My Game, a biography of Bob's
day by day account of the 19.69season, Ball Four, analyzes
teammate, famed base stealer Lou Brock, it was revealed
this situation:
"Today I've been thinking about god and baseball, or is it that Gibson's attitude toward christianity is the same as his
baseball and god? In any case, this rumination was caused
attitude toward opposing hitters: one of total disdain. It
by the sight of Lindy McDaniel of the Yankees. Although came up in a conversation between Brock and fellow
I've riever met him, I feel I know him pretty well because of Cardinal Ron Fairly, as Fairly recalled a confrontation
this newsletter he sends out from Baytown, Texas, called between Gibson and former "Philadelphia Phillies player
"Pitching for the Master." One of the first I got from himTony Taylor, who would always make the sign of the cross
and allthe players receive them-was a complete four-page before stepping in to hit: "... I recall one day he was hitting
explanation of why the church of christ was the only true . against Gibson, and Gibbie, as you know, doesn't have
church. The dogmatism of this leads to the kind of thinking much truck with any of that jesus jazz, so he shows his back
you find in the Fellowship of christian Athletes, and in to Taylor and crosses himself, then turns around and yells
Guidepos-ts and Readers Digest. The philosophy here is 'OK Taylor, now we're gonna see which side big daddy is
that religion is the reason an athlete is good at what he does. on. , "
No ending was given to the story, but a likely one would
'My faith in god is what made me come back' or 'I knew jesus
was in my corner.' Since no one ever has an article saying have been Taylor becoming one of Gibson's numerous
'God didn't help me' or 'It's my muscles, not jesus,' kids strikeout victims. Today Gibson is in the Hall of Fame, while
pretty soon get the idea that jesus helps all athletes and the Taylor, at best, is an answer to somebody's trivia question.
Another example of the effectiveness of prayer.
ones who don't speak up are just shy or embarrassed.
Once upon a time, bodybuilding was considered to be a
"So I've been tempted sometimes to say into a microphone that I won tonight because I don't believe in god. I narcissistic sport, practiced only by unintellectual egomean just for the sake of balance, just to let the kids know maniacs in smelly gymnasiums. That was before the
that belief in a deity or "pitching for the master" is not one of emergence of Arnold Schwartzenegger as the greatest
Page 20

March,1982

American Atheist

bodybuilder of all time. Arnold won the Mr. Olympia title,


the top bodybuilding title in the world, an unprecedented six
times in a row from 1970 to 1975 before retiring from
competition. Then, in 1980 he made a comeback, and won
the title a seventh time. Along with this, he has authored
three books and appeared in numerous movies. Arnold's
. charismatic personality and immense intellect have destroyed all of the old myths surrounding bodybuilders.
Early in his career, while still in his native Austria, Arnold
learned he could not expect any help from a god. Arnold
discussed his turn away from religion in his book Arnold:
The Education

of a Bodybuilder:

"Every sunday until I was fifteen, I went to church with


(my parents). Then my friends started asking why I did it.
They said it was stupid. I had never given it much thought
one way or the other. It was a rule at home: We went to
church. Helmut Knaur, sort of an intellectual among the
bodybuilders, gave me a book called Pfaffenspiegel, which
was about priests, their lives, how horrible they were', and
how they'd altered the history of the religion.
"Reading that turned me completely around. Karl

(Gerstl) and Helmut and I discussed it in the gym. Helmut


insisted that ifI achieved something in life, I shouldn't thank
god for it, I should thank myself. It was the same if
something bad happened. I shouldn't ask god for help, I
should help myself. He asked me if I'd ever prayed for my
body. I confessed I had. He said if I wanted a great body, I
had to build it. Nobody else could. Least of all god.
"These were wild ideas for someone as young as I was.
But they made perfect sense and I announced to my family
that I would no longer go to church, that I didn't believe in it
and didn't have time to waste on it."
These are the kinds of success stories that christians
would like to pretend don't exist. They would have us all
thinking that faith is the major ingredient in any accomplishment of merit, and without it, one is lost. But, as you
can see, Gibson and Schwartzenegger have blown holes in
that theory. Each is recognized as a true athletic superstar,
and each did it without carrying the monkey known as
christianity on his back. That makes them both champions
in another arena: the intellectual arena.

Looking Up
G. Stanley Brown

STELLAR EVOLUTION
Evolution is a word which agitates biblical fundamentalists. It is obvious to the scientific establishment and onerous
to the scarcely educated. Evolution is popularly applied to
species of life. But there is another kind of evolution, more
abstract yet more easily verified. This is the evolution of
stars.
Stars exist as enormous self-luminous balls of gas, and
our sun is one of them. We know its size and horsepower
output, but what about its past and future? Physical science
and mathematics have given us the tools to calculate what
goes on in the interior of a star and the changes it passes
through from birth to death. Stellar evolution has no
missing links because stars of all ages are out there sending
us starlight now. Our task is to study the snapshot of
present observations of many stars and build a coherent
interpretation. This may be analogous to studying human
aging via a photograph of a multi-generation family. However, stellar aging depends on processes which are better
understood than human aging.
Progress in explaining the birth, lifeand death of stars has
depended on developments in astronomical instrumentation, nuclear physics and computers. It has relied on
differential equations and the physics of gases. Astronomers understand all of these and can show that their
interaction is a powerful and convincing demonstration of
the ancient origin of the sun 5 billion years ago. The same
techniques show that the sun has another 5 billion years of
energy remaining and reveal the fate of the earth just before
the death of the sun. This paper will discuss all of these

techniques to a depth which willdemonstrate that doubters


have their work cut out for them. Making a contribution to
the study of stellar evolution requires years of study and ~
work with other experts in this field.
_
This narrative will first identify the major cliaracteristics
of stars and discuss methods used to measure them. We
must know about real stars as they are now before we can
discern the effects of time on them. And to understand stars
we must know what is going on inside them. So some
fundamentals of astrophysics are discussed. Mathematics
and physics have enabled us to know more about the
interior of stars than the interior of the earth because stars
are far hotter. With high speed electronic computers
astronomers have calculated the conditions which produce
change in stars. This is an essential tool in the study of
stellar evolution. Finally, conditions leading to the birth of a
star are described. The subsequent life history willfollow in
another paper.
OBSERVATIONS
We begin first with the observations. As a science,
astronomy must be based on measurements of the physical
world. With telescopes and various attached machines for
measuring light, astronomers can determine many things
about a star. First, the distance to the star is needed. In the
paper "The Third Dimension" (American Atheist, Vol. 23,
No. 12, p. 9) methods for obtaining distance to the stars
were explained. Different kinds of observation provide
more information. With a device called a photoelectric

March,1982

Austin, Texas

rJ

Page 21

photometer
the apparent
brightness
of a star can be
measured. The apparent brightness plus the distance gives
the actual brightness
via the inverse square law. We
continue by measuring star light through different colored
filters and comparing brightness in red, yellow and blue
light, for example. This gives the temperature
of the
atmosphere
of the star because there is a relationship
between temperature and the dominant color radiated by a
hot gas. Knowing temperature and true brightness we can
calculate the radius of the star.
How this is done is an instructive example in quantitative
thinking. Both radius and temperature affect brightness. If
two stars have the same temperature but one has twice the
radius of the other, the larger star will be four times brighter,
because the surface area is four times greater. If two stars
have the same radius but one is twice as hot as the other,
the hotter star will be sixteen times brighter, because
brightness is proportional to the fourth power of temperature. This latter fact can be shown in the laboratory or
derived using mathematics
and physical priniciples. The
ideas above are expressed in physical laws of Wien, Planck
and Stefan-Boltzmann.
With brightness and temperature of stars we can do what
is so common in science: plot a graph. In 1911 E. Hertzsprung plotted stars for which data was available with
.temperature increasing to the left and brightness increasing
upward. H.N. Russell advanced the study of this graph and
it became known as the Hertzsprung-Russell
(H-R) diagram.
Figure 1 is an example. It is a fundamental
tool of
astrophysicists as they study and compare stars and decide
how time is related to their appearance.
Stars occur frequently in groups in our galaxy. Two
groups which may be seen with the unaided eye are the
Pleiades and Hyades. With binoculars you can see more
groups of stars. Groups offer the advantage of suggesting a
common age for their members. Also, because they are a
group, they are all at approximately the same distance. So
the true brightness ratios of the stars are equal to their
apparent brightness ratios. We can plot H-R diagrams for
various groups of stars and look for patterns and suqqestions about how time maybe involved. The first fact to be
seen in these plots is that stars are not scattered at random
in temperature and brightness. Rather, all the plots show a
line from upper left to lower right. There must be something
real and significant about that line.
Another source of information is available. It is the
chemical composition
of the atmosphere
of the star.
Astronomers use a device called a spectrograph
attached
to a telescope. This takes the light of a star and spreads it
out according to its color. It is possible to measure the
strength of each color photoelectrically or photographically
and obtain a graph of light intensity versus color. Instead of
color, scientists use the more specific term "wavelength"
and use powerful instruments to examine minute details of
change in intensity with wavelength. The technique of
spreading light by color enough to gather scientific data was
first applied to the light of the sun by J. Fraunhofer in 1815.
Through decades of work physicists have been able to
interpret the patterns of varying light intensity and identify
the chemical elements in the gas producing the light. They
have also been able to calculate relative abundances
of
elements; e.g. how' many helium atoms are present for
every carbon atom. The technique relies: on a detailed
Page 22

March,

1982

-6

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~o

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., I

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-z

s"".'o'Otlft

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o-

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-100

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.,
.,

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Fig. 1. The HR diagram for stars accessible to observation


with
modern telescopes,
prepared by W. Gyllenberg, Lund Obser
vatory, Sweden.

understanding of the electrons of atoms and how temperature affects them. The calculations
can be checked by
laboratory experiments.
.
Astronomers have applied these principles to the light of
stars and discovered that some clusters of stars contain a
larger percentage
of hydrogen and helium than others.
Furthermore
the appearance
of the H-R diagram of a
cluster is correlated
with the abundance
of elements
heavier than helium. More stars appear in the upper right
for clusters with few heavy elements, and more stars appear
in the upper left for clusters with more heavy elements.
Astronomers
would like to know if the presence of heavy
elements indicates age or youth.
,:0::
ANALYSIS
Interpretation
of observational
data is an area rich in
opportunities for talented people. They take great delight in
analyzing, proposing hypotheses,
calculating predictions
from hypotheses,
comparing results with observations,
rejecting their erroneous work and starting again. They
bring to bear the power of mathematics,
computers and
physics in their assult on data about stars. They mix
inspiration with tedious attention to detail, and welcome
constructive criticism from other specialists. Destroying a
bad theory is constructive criticism.
Theoretical astrophysics is a process of model building.
We all understand a model airplane or car, but other kinds
of models are possible. They consist of numbers. The
numbers are a measure of physical characteristics
and they
are related by rules of physics. For example. given two
numbers a third may be calculated and with the third a
fourth may be calculated. The process may be continued ad
infinitum with whatever principles are applicable until the
results can be compared with observations. This technique
is especially important to astronomy because it is the only
tool available. Biologists can conduct experiments in their
laboratory by controlling starting conditions and environment. Chemists and physicists control what goes into their
experiments a'nd how much. But astronomers
can control
'American

Atheist

nothing. Stars do not fit into laboratories. The astronomical


laboratory is the universe and scientists can only observe
what is happening.
Fortunately all indications are that the laws of physics
found in the laboratory apply to stars, no matter how
distant. So the astrophysicist can build a model of a star. He
can make assumptions, calculate physical attributes, and
compare with observation. He can change his assumptions
and repeat the process. Along the way he may conclude
that he has not yet succeeded in making the right assumptions, or that they are incomplete. And he must always
weed out mistakes in his instructions to the computer.
PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS
Models of stars are constructed using differential equations. These are equations which express the rate of change
of one quantity with respect to another in a fashion which is
dependent on a third, fourth and more quantities. There are
four differential equations used in stellar model building and
all of them express change with respect to radius of a star.
Stars are assumed to be spherical with all properties being
dependent only on distance from the center. The four
equations describe how pressure, mass, temperature, and
luminosity change in the star as radical distance is changed.
The changes are dependent on at least three quantities: the
average mass per particle in the star, the opacity of the
material, and the energy generation rate. What the above
terms mean should be explained. Pressure is the force
applied per unit area. Mass is the amount of material.
Temperature is a measure of the speed of atoms. Luminosity is energy produced per unit time in a shell of the
sperical star. Mass per particle is the amount of material in a
unit volume divided by the number of particles. Opacity is a
measure of the resistance of radiation to the passage of
light. Energy generation rate is a measure of the energy
produced in a unit volume of stellar matter. Unitvolume,
unit area, unit time are terms necessary to reduce numbers
to a common base. For example we can say that the gross
national product of a country is 100 billion dollars. But we
know the standard of living in the country if we know the
wealth per person, the money per unit of population.
Division is involved here.
All of the above quantities are interrelated and the
relationships are expressed in the different equations.
These equations can be found in most books which discuss
stellar interiors. The mean molecular weight depends on the
chemical composition and this is a quantity which is chosen
hy the astronomer. The opacity is dependent on the
chemical composition. the temperature, the density and
various considerations of atomic physics. The energy
generation rate is dependent on temperature, density,
chemical composition and various considerations of nuclear physics.
Utilizing the differential equations and formulas for all the
above terms would be quite difficult without the invention of
high speed electronic computers. A computer makes easy
the task of numerical integration. This is a very repetitive
calculation with slight change during each repetition. The
method works as follows. The pressure, mass, temperature
and luminosity can be assumed in a spherical shell of the
star. The equations give us the expected change in the four
quantities as we move to an adjacent shell. The new values
are then used as input to the equations before calculation of
Austin, Texas

new values for a third shell. The process is repeated until the
calculations indicate an obviously wrong result, for example, there is no mass in the :center of the star, or the
pressure or temperature in the atmosphere is too high or
the luminosity does not fit with observations. These errors
indicate that the starting assumptions were wrong. They
must be adjusted and the process repeated. When all
quantities make sense at all distances from the center of the
star we can believe we have numbers which are well correlated with reality.
So far nothing has been said about evolution. We have
only developed the means to know about a place we can
never see or measure directly: the interior of a star. But by
knowing the conditions there we are able to calculate
changes with the passage of time. The key factor here is the
change in chemical composition with time. Nuclear physics
tells us that ifwe put enough hydrogen in one place at a high
enough temperature, and add time, we will get helium. An
increase in temperature and more time will produce still
heavier elements. Nuclear physics tells us how fast the new
elements are created. So it is possible to calculate stellar
models, cacluate change in chemical composition in, for
example, one million years and calculate a new model with
the new composition. The process is repeated to learn how
the star changes with time.
The calculations and theoretical considerations tell us
that the life history of a star is dependent on only two of its
properties: mass and chemical composition. Of these' mass
is by far the most important. A small star can spend twenty
billion years cooking hydrogen into helium. But a large star
can do that, go on to building heavier elements, and blow
up, all in less than one hundred million years. There are a
large number of dwarf (low mass) stars relative to the
number of giant (large mass) stars. Combining this fact with
their different rates of evolution enables us to interpret what
we see in space.
STELLAR CONCEPTION ,-:
Having discussed both the observational data and the
powerful techniques available to aid our understanding of
stars, we next proceed to the conditions leading to the birth
of a star. We start with the existence of enormous
collapsing clouds of gas. These are called "protogalaxies".
They are turbulent, they fragment into still smaller clouds,
and they are composed of 90'X, hydrogen and 10% helium.
Their origin will be discussed in a subsequent paper.
Collapse is caused by ,gravity and collapse causes turbulence. Turbulence causes variation in density of matter
throughout the cloud. The higher density places tend to
attract surrounding material to themselves. So we have a
process labeled "gaseous fragmentation". However, the
turbulence would be expected to cause collisions between
the fragments and destroy any permanence. So a process
must be involved which promotes the collapse of the
fragments before they can be destroyed by collisions. This
process is radiative cooling. A fragment sends out heat and
light and for that it can accelerate its gravitational collapse.
On a macroscopic scale it is said to be converting gravitational potential energy to radiant energy. On the atomic
scale atoms collide and their electrons are knocked into
more energetic orbits. After collision the electrons return to
their original low energy orbits by emitting a quantum of
radiation.

March,1982

Page 23

>,

So long as a cloud can radiate it can contract. And it can,


again because of turbulence, subdivide into still smaller
fragments. This process of creating ever smaller fragments
willcontinue so long as gravity dominates pressure within
the cloud. However there is a lower limit to the process.
Collapse of matter increases its density, which increases its
opacity, which decreases the chances of radiant energy
escaping. Hence the collapse rate is slowed and the
temperature inside the fragment rises. This increases the
pressure and further subfragmentation is stopped. Calculations by astronomers show that when a self-gravitating
fragment becomes opaque, its mass is equal to the mass of a
typical star.
At this point a star is born. In Part II of this paper we will

combine our powerful understanding of physics with the


observations, the H-R diagrams. We will do this by describing the processes that go on inside a star and show how
these generate a "surface" temperature and luminosity
which matches the observations. Each step in our evolutionary sequence must produce a star which is matched
by a real one, and this must be true for a range of stellar
masses and initial chemical compositions. Our computer
models must elucidate the structural changes preceeding
the creation of neutron stars and black holes. They must
explain red giants, white dwarfs, planetary nebulae and
supernovae. They must tell why heavy elements like iron
are seen in some stars and not others. They must tell us the
life story of a star.

Robert Stricklin
Men have been predicting the end of the world since the
beginning of civilization, forewarned of apocalypse by the
stars, by omens, by the mere eclipse of the sun and by the
entrails of animals. Others have interpreted the ancient
prophecies of biblical scribes to conclude that the end was
imminent. A century has not gone by without the threat of
'doomsday' being over mankind's head by religious institutions or by individuals whose purposes were not entirely
selfless.
.
The wrath of god has always been a ploy used by christian
clergymen and evangelists. When common sense challenged
their beliefs, they resorted to fire and brimstone to sustain
the notion that religion is humanity's only refuge from
destruction. They maintained that without obedience and
unquestioning devotion to religious precepts, mankind
becomes sinful and the punishment for sinfulness is plague,
pestilence and doomsday.
Now that mankind is capable of destroying itself with
nuclear weapons, theologians and born-again laymen have
found a more convincing means of driving home the
message of salvation. By exploiting our fears of devastation
they are not only converting nenbelievers into zealots but
converting their dire warnings into top dollar:
By far the most prosperous exponent of Doomsday
literature is Hal Lindsey, author of The Late Great Planet
Earth, published in 1970 and purported to be the bestselling
book of that decade. Using biblical prophecy from both Old
and New Testaments, Lindsey's book presents an elaborate forecast in which a new Roman Empire made up of
ten nations will spawn an omnipotent antichrist. who will
enslave the world and lead mankind to Armageddon.
Liberally interpreting passages from the books of Daniel,
Ezekiel, Isaiah and the book of Revelations, Lindsey conjured a vision of a not-so-distant future exploding with war,
famine, earthquakes and totalitarianism preceding the
second coming of jesus christ. Lindsey, a graduate of Dallas
Theological Seminary and a former staff member of Campus Crusade for Christ, offered readers one- hope of
survival from the horrors predicted in his book-the
acceptance of christ as their saviour. The proliferation of
religious propaganda throughout The Late Great Planet
Earth was so excessive it read like a recruitment manual
Page 24

March,1982

PI

rather than a prophetic warning. The reader was constantly


reminded that all forces in the world either positive or
negative are governed by god or satan. The height of
Lindsey's born-again conceit was reached when he predicted that jews willaccept christ as their messiah just prior
to the last judgment.
The Late Great Planet Earth has sold over eighteen
million copies to date. A pseudo-documentary based on the
book was released in 1979. In the ten years since the book's
publication, Lindsey has published five other volumes
including The Liberation of the Planet Earth, The Terminal
Generation, and There's a New World Coming, all didactic
glorifications of the power of prayer and christian values.
His latest offering, The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon,
is a rehashing of his original book, updated with recent
development in the Middle East, Common Market and
nuclear arms race slanted to substantiate Lindsey's farfetched projections.
The significance of Lindsey's success has not eluded
Hollywood. Where cinema once gave serious and thoughtprovoking attention to the possibilities of nuclear war in
such films as On the Beach, Fail-Safe, and Dr. Strangelove,
it now approaches the subject with religious overtones for
purely commercial reasons as evidenced by movies like The
Omen. Following in the footsteps of Ira Levin's clever
shocker Rosemary's Baby, inwhich the son of satan is born
into the modern world, The Omen presented a five-year old
antichrist named Damien Thorn protected by evil disciples
and seemingly invincible as those who stood in his way were
dispatched in graphically gory fashion by unseen, mystical
forces. Slickly produced and grimly entertaining, The
Omen became one of the hit films of 1976. Regrettably, its
success led to two sequels, Damien-Omen II and The Final
Conflict, neither of which matched the first film-in quality or
box office appeal. In all three films, medieval views of the
universe were reinforced, namely that the world is a
battleground between the agents of heaven and hell and
that destiny supersedes the free willof mankind. Preying on
ancient fears of the devil and the public's morbid fascination
with disaster, the producers of The Omen grossed millions.
There are those who profess to be prophets in their own
time. The most popular of these would-be soothsayers is
. American Atheist

undoubtedly Jeane Dixon, who achieved national recognition in 1965 as the subject of Ruth Montgomery's bestseller, A Gift of Prophecy. Mrs. Dixon's initial claim to fame
was the contention that she predicted, among many other
things, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
several years before it happened. We were not surprised to
learn that Mrs. Dixon's method of divining the future was
through a little crystal ball, as well as an occasional
revelation, vision and oracular dream. Star-struck by her
sudden notoriety, Mrs. Dixon went on to write her own
journal, My Life and Prophecies in 1969, appeared on
various talk shows and the lecture circuit, and established a
widely syndicated astrological newspaper column.
In My Life and Prophecies, Mrs. Dixon's visions of the
1980s and 1990s echo the ominous forebodings of Hal
Lindsey and others-nuclear
holocaust, the antichrist,
world domination, et cetera. A devout catholic, Mrs. Dixon
has been personally told by the virgin Mary and other deities
that a return to the ways of the lord are mankind's only hope
of survival.
Ifone keeps a scorecard, it is extraordinary how many of
Mrs. Dixon's published predictions have not been fulfilled.
Among her most embarrassing misses were the forecasts
that China would plunge the world into war in 1958, the
Russians would land the first man on the moon, Walter
Reuther would seek the presidency, and Bishop Pike would
find success in a new career (a prediction submitted for
publication weeks before Pike perished in the Judean
desert). Also damaging to her credibility are her frequent
articles in the National Star, a tabloid which caters to
sensationalism.
Mrs. Dixon's downfall as a prognosticator is her tendency
to rely on her political prejudices and roman catholic
philosophy in the formulation of prophecy. She received
"good vibrations" from political figures like Richard Nixon,
Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, but bemoaned the
policies of liberal counterparts Lyndon Johnson, Robert
Kennedy and George McGovern. She referred to the late
Dr. Martin Luther King as "an unwitting tool of the
Communists" and predicted that the youth of the Woodstock generation "who neglect spiritual values will suffer
untold misery." These critical and subjective lapses betray
Jeane Dixon as a woman with a bone to pick rather than a
psychic with a vision to foretell.
One of the most ardent and persistent mutli-rnedia
soothsayers is Herbert W. Armstrong, pastor general of the
Worldwide Church of God, editor-in-chief of The Plain
Truth magazine, television commentator on It Is Written,
and author of several books including The United States
and Britain in Prophecy. Ninety years young, Mr. Armstrong is a globetrotting harbinger of 'kingdom come',
quoting scripture with every other sentence in an inexhaustible effort to alert and convert the masses before the
'great tribulation' he envisions. What distinguishes Armstrong from the pack of paranoid preachers is his rather
controversial conclusion that it will be the Vatican that
paves the way for mankind's seduction by satan and that
Rome may even become the seat of the antichrist, a fear
also expressed by the Our Lady of Fatima Crusade, an
apocalypse- conscious faction of the catholic church. To his
credit, Armstrong's mail-order books are free of charge,
although contributions are suggested and readily accepted.
Even the more reputable of evangelists have used the
Austin, Texas

apocalyptic approach to their advantage. Billy Graham,


who has taught the christian principles of humility and
material poverty while golfing with presidents and managing
to place on various "best-dressed" lists, dealt with the
question of world upheaval and destruction in his best
selling volume, The Road to Armageddon. Again the
solution for an endangered world of varying cultures,
creeds and economic conditions, according to Graham,
was total submission to the christian philosophy. Predictably, the book did nothing to enhance the human
condition,butitsprofitsenrichedGraham'sfoundationand
helped sustain his notoriety.
Charlatans have thrived as well on the grim realities of the
atomic era. One ofHeverend Jim Jones' most persuasive
excuses why the People's Temple members had to relocate
to the jungles of Guyana was the alleged inevitability of
Armageddon. He convinced his disciples that a third world
war was imminent and only those who followed him to his
remote tropical paradise would survive the holocaust. They
obeyed and ironically were doomed to a self-induced
holocaust.
For most of our modern prophets the last judgment is
always just around the corner. Few have the courage to pin
down an approximate date and those who have now wish
they hadn't. For years the jehovah's witnesses predicted the
end of the world by 1975. Naturally, they insisted that only
their followers would achieve eternal salvation as a reward,
the same prize offered by virtually every religion. -Seven
years after the fateful forecast, the jehovah's witnesses still
point to imminent doom as an inducement to conversion,
although they have ceased to mention a specific time.
Similarly, Indian hindus headed for the hills in February of
1962 when the planets of our solar system were in conjunction, a sure sign, they believed, that the world was
ending. They have long since returned from the hills.
The most irrational and comical doomsday journal one is
likely to encounter is a newly established newspaper
dubbed The Last Trumpet, published by Willie and David
Hauser of Amityville, Long Island. For twenty-five cents a
copy the tabloid offers its readers 'Tomorrow's News
Today" with screaming headlines such as "Russia Invades
Mideast", "World Faces Economic Collapse", "Messiah
Returns as All Nations Gather to Destroy Israel", as well as
unintentionally amusing future news like "MillionsMissingWhere Are They?" and this laughable description of anarchy afoot on the West Coast: "Moral decay in California
has become epidemic ... Drug and alcohol use is out of
control as the overdose rate has tripled in the last six
months ... Many desperate people have turned to the occult
and rival gangs of witches are murdering each other by the
hundreds .., Sexual perversion has erupted as homosexual
mobs roam the streets committing atrocities against woo
men and children ... Law enforcement agencies appear to
be helpless as we approach total chaos ... The governor is
now considering putting the state under martial law." The
Last Trumpet is nothing more than an imitator of the Hal
Lindsey blueprint for Armageddon with the typical religious
payoff ("Bible Search Proves World Was Warned") - two
full pages of scripture and evangelical interpretation. The
end result looks more like parody than prophecy.
Yet it is precisely our uncertainty of the future that
encourages and perpetuates this profitable speculation.
Like children who heed vague warnings of parental punish-

March,1982

Page 25

ment, the public considers dire prognostication with more


interest than skepticism and willcontinue to do so as long as
the possibility of destruction exists. If Armageddon does
occur through man-made, social and political factors, those
self-proclaimed prophets can take credit for giving us

advanced warning. If it does not happen, the same appointed guardians of morality can exploit the theme indefinitely, lending credence to the belief that there is a
market for everything, even doom.

]])ll&Jl-THE=&1f[H][Ell1f
American Atheist Center, Austin, Texas
IIDll&Jl &i\J & 1f[H][Ell1f CHAPTERS OF AMERICAN ATHEISTS
Phoenix. Arizona
Tucson. Arizona
Los Angeles. California
Sacramento. California
San Diego. California
San Francisco. California
Denver. Colorado
South Florida
Tampa Bay. Florida
Atlanta. Georgia
Chicago. Illinois
Evansville. Indiana
Lexington. Kentucky
Boston. Massachusetts

(602)
(602)
(213)
(916)
(714)
(415)
(303)
(303)
(813)
(404)
(312)
(812)
(606)
(617)

899-7411
623-3861
460-4326
989-3170
232-6767
974-1750
692-9395
384-8923
577-7154
329-9809
335-4648
425-1949
278-8333
344-2988

(512) 458-5731

St. Louis. Missouri


Albuquerque. New Mexico
New York City. New York
Schenectady. New York
Charlotte. North Carolina
Oklahoma City. Oklahoma
Portland. Oregon
Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania
Providence. Rhode Island
Detroit. Michigan
Houston. Texas
Salt Lake City. Utah
Alexandria. Virginia

(314) 771-8894
(505) 884-7360
(212) 726-3647
(518) 346-1479
(704) 568-5346
(405) 677-4141
(503) 287-6461
(412) 734 0509
(617-344-2988
(313) 721-6630
(713) 367-0574
(801) 364-4939
(703) 370-5255

Cont'd from p.14

zerland by Slatkine, Inc., complete with original charts and


illustrations.
Historical indexes and abstracts reveal pathetically little
about the Illuminati. There are no English-language biographies on Weishaupt, Nicoli, Knigge or other leading
Illuminists; somewhat revealing but at times speculative
accounts of the Order can be found in John Lepper's
. Famous Secret Societies and Mythology of Secret Societies
by J.M. Roberts. One must often turn to the writings of the
christian-royalist Nesta Webster, including her Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, reprinted from a 1924
edition in 1967 by the Christian Book Club. Her July, 1920
article titled "Illuminism and the World Revoution", which
appeared in The Nineteenth Century is a distillation of the
Order's history, mixed generously with misinformation and
prejudice.
Four copies of the English translation of Barruel's Memoirs are known to exist and circulate in public libraries in the
United States on the Inter-library Loan System. Unfortunately, reading these volumes is wearisome chore, not
only due to the antiquated typographical style of the period,
but also to the Abbe's constant rantings against the.
"sophisters of Impiety and Anarchy". Robison's Proofs of a
Conspiracy was reprinted by the John Birch Society in
1967, when the group began the rather imaginative task of
linking Illuminism with something it terms the "insiders", a
group of behind-the-scenes types responsible for everything from Communism to the common cold.
Thomas Paine's History of Freemasonry is not generally
available, although a copy is known to exist in the Rare
Book Collection at the Library of Congress. This work was
originally printed by Nicholas BonnevilIe.
The Atheist scholar and propagandist Joseph McCabe
also wrote A History of Freemasonry, issued as number
B790 in the Haldeman-Julius series, and published in 1949.

McCabe deals chiefly with the papal condemnations of


Masonry, but neglects the subject of Illuminism; his essay is
more a polemic against catholic censure of the lodges and
less a detailed study of their history. For Atheists, the
history of Freemasonry must be rediscovered.
Concerning the Order of the Illuminati-that is a historical backwater eddy few have bothered to thoroughly
explore. Nevertheless, its roots in Atheistic tradition deserve and demand a more impartial and exhaustive inquiry
than history has given it.
,:<;

a"

March,

1982

"h"'~I"

.
L I
~

H T : :L >.. o I' 1- a ~i
-",cra.le
04J)=C=_5.Pt
)<-

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Page 26

c ~

~ l!X r -l. ..J d'':l -t-~


rJ LI ( .., L i_A,..
I<"/!L.-.>r"v_~

A.

yo

/Z'34r67J
""" '=' CJn/:1

.x. "'X;x."

;.

The brethern dated their letters according to the Persian era.


called after the king who began to role in Persia in 632 before
chrlll, Jezdegerd, and the year began with them on the 21st or
March. They corresponded, till initiated into the higher degrees.
in cypher, which consisted in numbers corresponding to leiter in
the rollowing order: a - 12, b - 11, c - 10, d - 9, e - e, r - 7,
g - 6 h - 5 i - 4 k - 3 I - 2 m - 1 n - 13 0 - 14 P - 15
q r - '17, s : 18. t '- 19, 'u - 20: w - 21: x - 22: y - 23:
z - 24.
When admitted to the hi&ber degrees, they used either the
one or the other hieroglyphic ahown below.
The word "Order" was never written in full, but always indio
cated by a circle with a dot in the centre.
The capture or their ciphered writings, in the house of Zwack
in 1786, disclosed that their primary plan ror power was to gain
over women, since women have initial control over each new
generation in the persons or children in their care.

16,

American

Atheist

The secret rites of initiation for membership of a masonic lodge. To the


right. a future member lies on the floor covered with a cloth. wailing to be
initialed.

The Duke lJ'Orleans. leader of the (;rand


Orient (Hibliothvque Natinnale Estalllpes),

Attorneys and Atheism

(continued

from page 2)

engages in litigation that does not strike at principle and


thus serve to strengthen
the whole, but instead puts
American Atheists one foot deeper in the hole of legal
precedence of which we can already hardly see the top,
must be disenfranchised or abandoned if necessary for the
long term good of the total organization.
You may call this position dictatorial, stubborn, or even
fascist, as you will. It is designed for the best now and
futuristically for all Atheists and for Atheism as a life style in
our culture. It comes from the most pure of motives. The
liberty of each individual, of course, cannot be denied and as
individuals all of you are free to proceed as you like on an
individual contractual
basis with whom you desire to
continue. But, before you do, however, I urge you to
consider all of the ramifications of such action which-cannot
help but affect others.
National office cannot support the contemplated
or
adventured actions of Chapters which fly in the face of
National office directives or positions. Often a Chapter sees
what it feels may be a "win" in a local court on an issue in
another case setting. This cannot be applied nationally and
does not ameliorate the systemic conditions nationwide
that leaves the same offense extant in other courts. An
example of this is the requirement of an oath, "So help me
God." in a court in order to give testimony. If the case is one
of divorce, or contract, or traffic violation, or tort, the court
can well rule that in this instance the person refusing to give
an oath may take an affirmation. Nothing is gained as a
principle to apply in all courts. Individual relief only is
attained. A case of divorce, of contract, of traffic violation or
tort cannot be appealed on the basis of the court ruling or
not ruling that an affirmation may be given instead of an
oath. This does not mean that the National office does NOT
support your right to speak up in court and to do what can
be done in such a single instance. In fact. Notional office
demands that you do. But it cannot he utilized as a cause
celebre for a Chapter because it is not one. It IS not a root, or
radical, issue. It is en passant the showing of individual
courage of an individual Atheist. We are happy to see this.
In strictly state/church
separation. situations Chapters
must adhere to national directives. 'Recently one Chapter
agreed to participate in a "christmas" pageant, to erect an
Atheist booth of the same size as twenty religious booths

depicting the so-called passion of jesus christ. The place of


American Atheists is NOT in a christmas pageant. The duty
of a Chapter is to have the religious symbolism removed
from government property, or government sponsorship or
financial aid revoked, instead of sanctifying the religious
celebration by becoming a part of it. There is no room in
government for support of religion or of Atheism. Jeffersonian separation means complete neutrality of government
and the continuance of government only in secular activities.
Arguments concerned with funding, in what has been
enormously expensive cases, have constantly arisen. This
is especially true when attorneys, who are quite ordinary
and unknown, are involved. Attorneys have been changed
in mid-stream with attendant loss of fees. One Chapter,
cheated out of large funds, finally completely abandoned a ~
good case. In several other Chapters, attorneys have gone
to those persons who have volunteered to belitigants and
attempted to pump money out of them with neither the
ligitants or the attorney advising National that this was
occurring. In other instances, attorneys have persuaded
individual Atheists to undertake cases without National
approval and these cases have come to naught. On the
other hand, when, with National approval and involvement,
very expensive and prominent law firms were hired on the
basis of money concern only, several cases have been won.
For many years Great Britain dominated the world with
the simple admonition, "England expects everyman to do
his duty." Rome maintained its Empire with its soldiers'
carrying the standard of S.P.Q.R. (Senatus Populusque
Romanus - for the Senate and the People of Rome).
Although we are uninterested
in dominating the world,
American Atheists need persons of such loyalty and
dedication. National expects' every Atheist to accept the
burdens of support as well as the blessings of freedom for
which The American Atheist Center stands.
We exhort Atheist attorneys to contact the National
office and to offer their services for local issues at their local
levels. We ask American Atheists everywhere to become
plaintiff litigants when necessary. And,we ask all American
Atheists wherever situated to support The Legal Fund.

March, 1982

Austin, Texas

IV

Page 27

By James Aldridge, London


ONE of the most extraordinary things about
asking our British scientists what they think
of Leonid Brezhnev~s proposal for an international committee of scientists who would
demonstrate the vital necessity of preventing a nuclear war is the growing feeling
among British scientists that now, more than
at any other time in history, it is absolutely
necessary that scientists should get together
and do something about preventing a
nuclear holocaust. Those that I spoke to
personally have responded enthusiastically
to the idea of such a committee.
Nobel Prize winner Prof. Dorothy Hodgkin said in this connection that though
scientists had been continually trying to.
do something about this problem of nuclear
catastrophe, they had so far not managed
to get very for. Now it is necessary to try to
make a more active process.
"The real point is," she said, "that people
have to be given some hope, and to be
persuaded that something can be done.
People go on hoping that nothing will happen, that we will somehow not have a nuclear war. But now it is more dangerous.
Once there was a stalemate in what was
called 'mutually assured destruction' but
even that is out of date in the new situation which is now almost out of control and
for more dangerous."
In fact
Prof. Hodgkin
saw Leonid
Brezhnev's proposal as the opportunity to
begin a different concept of scientific communication. "Firstly," she said, "the com-'
mittee could discuss means of using
scientific forces to extend the use of nuclear
fission to better purpose. So much of the
world's good scientific intelligence is being
wasted on arms when there are other
schemes that they could be better employed
on. Secondly, we could decide what to do
with surplus nuclear weapons. They actually can be used for peaceful purposes.
Thirdly, to use the vast potential of nuclear
power, as reflected in the knowledge of'
our scientists, for further advances into
space."
She said that. above all. it was necessary
for the Soviet Union and the United States
and others to sit down and talk because
only that way could people of the different
societies get to understand each other
better.
Later on I spoke to Prof. Sir Martin Ryle.
our leading astra-physicist and a foreign

Page 28

member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences


as well as being a member of the American
Academy of Sciences. and he said: "Of
course I support Leonid Brezhnev's proposal. Obviously one must have meetings,
particularly between scientists. to talk about
everything under the sun. Unfortunately,
many people feel helpless these days so
there is a growing concern about the spread
of nuclear weapons. So such a meeting as
proposed would be of vital importance."
Prof. Ryle went onto suggest that it would
be necessary to produce scientists who
were authorities in specific areas such as
doctors, chemists, physicists, etc.
Another of our most important British
scientists, Prof. Robert Hinde, Fellow of the
Royal Society and one of our leading
zoologists from Cambridge University, said:
"One aspect of Leonid Brezhnev's recent
speech to the 26th CPSU Congress has
received little attention in the British press,
namely his call for a committee of scientists who would.focus attention on the consequences of the present arms race." Prof.
Hinde went on to tell me that he felt that
the whole question of the misuse of resources, even by itself, was something that
had to be measured by experts, and the
only people who can do that are the
scientists.
Like other scientists I spoke with, Prof.
Hinde is worried that, as the whole structure of nuclear production increases worldwide, there is the growing problem of what
to do with plutonium. Current armament
policies promote the annual manufacture of
thousands of kilogrammes of this substance.
No safe method for storing these substances
is known and none is likely to be discovered. "In spite 0.1 this," the professor
pointed out, "the United States has recently
appropriated funds to increase further the
production of weapon-grade plutonium."

leading experts on the question of nuclear


arms and their strategic deployment, felt
that the proposed committee should be an
extension of the Pugwash conferences. He
said that scientists had been trying in the
Pugwash conferences to deal with the problems created by world tension, but that they
needed to be amplified and extended and
given more support.
When Leonid Brezhnev said: "The people
must know the truth about the destructive
consequences for human kind of a nuclear
war .. .", he was expressing the very idea
that all the scientists I spoke with support
and agree with. Moreover. each time I
spoke with one of our British scientists. I
learned more about the growing movement
in this country among scientists who are
taking a stand against nuclear arms and
chemical warfare.
Recently a "Committee Against Chemical
Warfare" was set up in the House of Commons. It is particularly concerned with defoliants and the chemical "agent orange"
used by the United States in Vietnam as
well as nerve gases and other deadly biological weapons. Prof. Michael Pentz told
me that a meeting was being held to set up
a
new organisation
called
"Scientists
against Nuclear War". Prof. Robert Hinde
is already the chairman of the Cambridge
University disarmament seminar. Sir Martin
Ryle's daughter Claire is the national organiser of a new group called "The Medical Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons".
Lady Ryle, the wife of Sir Martin Ryle, told
me that in East Anglia in the area around
Cambridge
a
new group
called
the
"Campaign against Missile Bases" already
has local organisations in 74 towns and
villages and is increasing every day. This is
the group that is trying to prevent the stationing of Cruise missiles in Britain.

So Leonid Brezhnev's proposal is going


to get wide support not only among our
This is the kind of thing that needs to be
serious scientists but among our ordinary
discussed between scientists and then ex- people. Considering Leonid Brezhnev's proposed to public information, the professor posal, Prof. Hodgkin said: "Many of our
feels, and the proposed meeting of scien- leading scientists in positions of authority
tists is necessary. "A first step in that direcand importance are now concerned and
tion," he said, "must surely' be to stop are willing to listen to appeals for sanity
meeting every proposal from the USSR
and the wider dissemination of information
with churlish suspicion and see ways of
about the dangers of nuclear' warfare."
building trust."
Prof.

Michael

Pentz,

March. 1982

one

of

Britain's

. American Atheist

Bertrand Russell

Albert Einstein

IN TI~~THESE TWO GREAT ATHEISTS SAID:


"There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in
happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death,
because we cannotforget our quarrels? We appeal, as human beings,
to human beings: Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If
you can do so, the way lies open to. a new paradise; if you cannot,
there lies before you the risk of universal death.
"In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons
will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the
continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the
world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purposes
cannot befurthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently,
to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute
between them." (From the Einstein-Russell Manifesto. signed by Max Born.
P.W. Bridgman. Albert Einstein. Leopold Infeld. J.F. .Joliot-Curie, H.J. Muller. Linus
Pauling. C.F. Powell. Joseph Hotblat, Bertrand Russell. Hideki Yukawa. and
others.)

redress of grievances . AMENDMENT

I Congress shall make

THERE IS NO ATHEISM POSSIBLE


WHERE FEAR OF CONSEQUENCES
IS A STRONGER PRINCIPLE THAN
LOVE OF TRUTH

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