s who nowadays only remain in India; therefore in the
further degrees the Order is called "Fire Worship" (Feuer-dienst),
the "Fire Order," or the "Persian Order"--that is, something
magnificent beyond all expectation.[503]

At the same time the Persian calendar was adopted by the
Illuminati.[504]

It is evident that this pretence of Zoroastrianism was as pure humbug as
Weishaupt's later pretence of Christianity; of the true doctrines of
Zoroaster he shows no conception--nor does he insist further on the
point; but the above passage would certainly lend colour to the theory
that his system was partly founded on Manichaeism, that is to say, on
perverted Zoroastrianism, imparted to him by a man from the East, and
that the methods of the Batinis and Fatimites may have been communicated
to him through the same channel. Hence the extraordinary resemblance
between his plan of organization and that of Abdullah ibn Maymun,
which consisted in political intriguing rather than in esoteric
speculation. Thus in Weishaupt's system the phraseology of Judaism, the
Cabalistic legends of Freemasonry, the mystical imaginings of the
Martinistes, play at first no part at all. For all forms of "theosophy,"
occultism, spiritualism, and magic Weishaupt expresses nothing but
contempt, and the Rose-Croix masons are bracketed with the Jesuits by
the Illuminati as enemies it is necessary to outwit at every turn.[505]
Consequently no degree of Rose-Croix finds a place in Weishaupt's
system, as in all the other masonic orders of the day which drew their
influence from Eastern or Cabalistic sources.

It is true that "Mysteries" play a great part in the phraseology of the
Order--"Greater and Lesser Mysteries," borrowed from ancient
Egypt--whilst the higher initiates are decorated with such titles as
"Epopte" and "Hierophant," taken from the Eleusinian Mysteries. Yet
Weishaupt's own theories appear to bear no relation whatever to these
ancient cults. On the contrary, the more we penetrate into his system,
the more apparent it becomes that all the formulas he employs which
derive from any religious source--whether Persian, Egyptian, or
Christian--merely serve to disguise a purely material purpose, a plan
for destroying the existing order of society. Thus all that was really
ancient in Illuminism was the destructive spirit that animated it and
also the method of organization it had imported from the East.
Illuminism therefore marks an en