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"Proofs of a Conspiracy" is John Robison's depiction of the secret order of the Illuminati, as he describes it "¿ the Order of the Illuminati, founded in 1775, by Dr. Adam Weishaupt, professor of Canon law in the university of Ingolstadt, and abolished in 1786 by the Elector of Bavaria, but revived immediately after, under another name, and in different form, all over Germany. It was again detected, and seemingly broken up; but it had by this time taken so deep a root that it still subsists without being detected, and has spread into all countries of Europe." His examination of this order, born of freemasonry, has induced him "¿ to lay before the public a short abstract of the information which [he hopes] sufficient for establishing the fact, that this detestable association exists, and its emissaries are busy among [us]."… (more)
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Robison was absolutely not anti-masonic, but instead (from 1770 on) a very devoted Scottish freemason and
Robison became a freemason in the "Loge de la Parfaite Intelligence" in Liege on his way to Catharina the Great in St Petersburg / Russia. In St. Peterburg he joined the English Lodge and avoided the French!
After his return to Edinburgh Robison took a leading part in creating the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783.
Robison deprecated the inflation of orders and elaboration of degrees of continental (e.g. French) freemasonry, which he called in this book the "Tinsel and glitter and high-sounding titles". He warned that this threatened the more "homely" Freemasonry familiar in Britain.
Therefor Robison's "Proofs of a Conspiracy" was his Newtonian (anti-French) protest against the Romantic elaboration of Freemasonry.
*) In this comment I extensively used Prof. Andrew Prescott's article " 'Tinsel & Glitter & High-sounding Titles': Robert Burns, James Hogg, & Scottish Freemasonry in the Romantic Period" in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Volume 124 of the year 2011.