British Conservatism, the Illuminati, and the Conspiracy Theory of the French Revolution, 1797–1802

Abstract

The reception and acceptance by British conservatives of the conspiracy theory of the French Revolution, as propounded by the Abbé Augustin de Barruel and Professor John Robison, has often been underplayed. This article seeks to correct that historiographical oversight by demonstrating the remarkable and unremarked extent to which the conspiracy theory of the Illuminati and the philosophes took root in the 1790s, then to explain that popularity, and finally to examine how acceptance of the conspiracy theory encouraged the development of an intellectual exceptionalism which had significant consequences for British attitudes towards continental philosophy, particularly that of Immanuel Kant.

The Matter of Mimesis

“…Athenaeum 1855and Charles Heath Wilson 1874, both cited in Fawcett 1986, 191, 205. See Hemingway 1989Morell 1971;Smith 1969. Taylor 2014 On the relationship of the Illuminati theory to the British use of 'Illumination' to describe the Enlightenment, see Schmidt 2003.…”

Upstaging Abolition: Enlightened Hypocrisy in Maria Edgeworth’s Whim for Whim

“…By the time of Edgeworth's stay in Bristol, close family friends had also published abolitionist and anti-slavery works which 16. Manly,"Intertextuality,Slavery,and Abolition,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] she read, including Thomas Day's "The Dying Negro" (1773) and Erasmus Darwin's "The Botanic Garden" (1791). 17 While we cannot be sure that Letters from an American Farmer (1782).…”

“…While Weishaupt's views of slavery have not been examined in any detail by scholars, the elitism of Illuminatism's selective recruitment and its secretive hierarchical organization jarred with its claims to spread Enlightenment values and has perpetuated the organization's association with conspiracy theories of both radical and conservative bents. 31 Robison details how in 1778, two years after the founding of Weishaupt's order and the American colonies' declaration of independence from the British crown, the growing membership began adopting classical names and "Thus Weishaupt took the name of Spartacus, the man who headed the insurrection of slaves" (103).…”