Overview: Occultic Illuminati Symbolism All Around Us

For those of you who may not know, the video above shows the All Seeing Eye as the symbol of CBS. CBS stands for Columbia Broadcasting System. D.C. (as in Washington, D.C.) stands for District of Columbia... and let's not forget Columbia Pictures which used to feature a woman standing in front of a pyramid shape.

Why all the fascination with Columbia?

In 1785, the Columbia Lodge of the Order of the Illuminati was established in New York City. Among its members were Governor DeWitt Clinton, Horace Greeley (politician and editor of the New York Daily Tribune), Charles Dana, and Clinton Roosevelt (the ancestor of Franklin D. Roosevelt). Roosevelt wrote a book called Science of Government Founded on Natural Law, in which he wrote: "There is no God of justice to order things aright on earth, if there be a God, he is a malicious and revengeful being, who created us for misery." He referred to himself and other members as the "enlightened ones," and said that the U.S. Constitution was a "leaky vessel" which was "hastily put together when we left the British flag," and therefore needed revision.

In 1786, a lodge was started in Portsmouth, Virginia, where allegedly, Thomas Jefferson was a member; followed by fourteen others in different cities of the thirteen colonies.

On July 19, 1789, David Pappin, President of Harvard University, issued a warning to the graduating class, concerning the Illuminati's influence on American politics and religion. In April, 1793, France sent new ambassador Edmond Genet to America, so he could collect payment for the American debt incurred during the American Revolution. The money was to be used to finance France's war with England. However, his real reason for being here, was to gain political favor for France, and spread Illuminism, which he did, through the establishment of 'Democratic Clubs.'

Washington said "they would shake the government to its foundations," while John Quincy Adams, oldest son of the 2nd President John Adams, who became our 6th President in 1825, said that these clubs were "so perfectly affiliated with the Parisian Jacobins that their origin from a common parent cannot possibly be mistaken." Because of the Illuminati threat, Washington and Adams lobbied Congress to pass the Alien and Sedition Act, which was "designed to protect the United States from the extensive French Jacobin conspiracy, paid agents of which were even in high places in the government."

In a letter from Adams to Jefferson, dated June 30, 1813, he wrote: "You certainly never felt the terrorism excited by Genet, in 1793 ... when ten thousand people in the streets of Philadelphia, day after day threatened to drag Washington out of his house, and effect a revolution ... nothing but (a miracle) ... could have saved the United States from a fatal revolution of government."

Thomas Paine, author and political theorist, helped the Illuminati infiltrate several Masonic lodges. He revealed his loyalty to them when his book The Age of Reason was published in 1794, which dealt with the role of religion in society. Although he believed in God, he could not accept the entire Bible as being fact.

A second volume was published in 1796. An unofficial third volume (subtitled: Examination of the Prophecies) also appeared, which seriously questioned the deity and existence of Jesus. In 1937, The Times of London referred to him as "the English Voltaire."

On May 9, 1798, Rev. Jedediah Morse, pastor of the Congregational Church in Charleston, South Carolina preached a sermon at the New North Church in Boston, about the Illuminati: "Practically all of the civil and ecclesiastical establishments of Europe have already been shaken to their foundations by this terrible organization; the French Revolution itself is doubtless to be traced to its machinations; the successes of the French armies are to be explained on the same ground. The Jacobins are nothing more nor less than the open manifestation of the hidden system of the Illuminati. The Order has its branches established and its emissaries at work in America. The affiliated Jacobin Societies in America have doubtless had as the object of their establishment the propagation of the principles of the illuminated mother club in France ... I hold it a duty, my brethren, which I owe to God, to the cause of religion, to my country and to you, at this time, to declare to you, thus honestly and faithfully, these truths. My only aim is to awaken you and myself a due attention, at this alarming period, to our dearest interests. As a faithful watchman I would give you warning of your present danger."

Later in July, Timothy Dwight, President of Yale University, told the people of New Haven: "Shall our sons become the disciples of Voltaire (a French writer) and the dragoons of Murat, or our daughters, the concubines of the Illuminati."

To infiltrate the Masonic lodges in Europe, Weishaupt had enlisted the aid of John Robison, who was a long time, high degree Mason in the Scottish Rite, a professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University in Scotland, a British historian, and Secretary-General to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. When he went to Germany, he was given Weishaupt's revised conspiracy plans to study, in order to expand the Illuminati's influence in the British Isles. However, Robison didn't agree with their principles, and after warning American Masons in 1789, published a book to expose the organization in 1798 called Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried On In the Secret Meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies (which presented the Protestant view). He wrote: "I have observed these doctrines gradually diffusing and mixing with all the different systems of Freemasonry till, at last, an association has been formed for the express purpose of rooting out all the religious establishments, and overturning all the existing governments of Europe."

Also, that same year, Abbé Augustin Barruel (French patriot, Jesuit, and 3rd degree Mason) published his Memoires pour servir a l´Histoire du Jacobinisme or Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism (which presented the Roman Catholic view). Both books sought to warn America about the Illuminati conspiracy, but the warnings were not taken seriously. The January, 1798 edition of the Monthly Magazine contained a letter by Augustus Bottiger, Provost of the College of Weimar, who accused Robison of making inaccurate statements, and said that since 1790, "every concern of the Illuminati has ceased."

Thomas Jefferson, believed to be a member of the Virginia lodge of the Illuminati, and a Mason (who helped the Illuminati to infiltrate the New England Masonic lodges), denied all the allegations, and described Weishaupt as "an enthusiastic philanthropist" and called Barruel's revelations "the ravings of a Bedlamite (Bedlam was the name of a hospital in London for the mentally insane)."

During the summer of 1798, Rev. G. W. Snyder, a Lutheran minister, wrote a letter to President Washington and included a copy of Robison's book, expressing his concern about the Illuminati infiltrating the American Masonic lodges. In Washington's response, dated September 25, 1798, he wrote: "I have heard much about the nefarious and dangerous plan and doctrines of the Illuminati," but went on to say that he didn't believe that they had become involved in the lodges. A subsequent letter by Snyder, requesting a more reassuring answer, resulted in a letter from Washington, dated October 24, 1798, which can be found in The Writings of George Washington (volume 20, page 518, which was prepared under the direction of the U.S. George Washington Bicentennial Commission and published by the U.S. Government Printing Office in 1941). He wrote:

"It was not my intention to doubt that the doctrines of the Illuminati and the principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more satisfied of this fact than I am. The idea I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the lodges of Freemasons in this country had, as societies, endeavored to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or pernicious principles of the latter. That individuals of them may have done it, or that the founder or instruments employed to have found the democratic societies in the United States may have had this object, and actually had a separation of the people from their government in view, is too evident to be questioned."

Shortly before his death, Washington issued two more warnings about the Illuminati.

Around 1807, John Quincy Adams (said to have organized the New England Masonic lodges), who later became President in 1825, wrote three letters to Colonel William C. Stone, a top Mason, telling him that Thomas Jefferson, our 3rd President, and founder of the Democratic Party, was using the Masonic lodges for subversive Illuminati purposes. These letters were allegedly kept at the Rittenburg Square Library in Philadelphia, but have mysteriously vanished. Adams also wrote to Washington, saying that Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were misusing Masonic lodges for Illuminati purposes and the worship of Lucifer (which is recorded in the Adams Chronicles).

Benjamin Franklin was also accused of being a member of the Illuminati, but there is no concrete proof of this. Jefferson seemed to be the main focus of everyone's ire. He was accused by the Federalists of being a Jacobin, and an atheist. There is some evidence to indicate that he did use the Democratic Societies and Jacobin Clubs in his 1796 battle with John Adams for the Presidency. The Rev. Jedediah Morse identified Jefferson as "an Illuminatus."

On July 4, 1812, Rev. Joseph Willard, the president of Harvard University, said in a speech in Lancaster, New Hampshire: "There is sufficient evidence that a number of societies, of the Illuminati, have been established in this land of Gospel light and civil liberty, which were first organized from the grand society, in France. They are doubtless secretly striving to undermine all our ancient institutions, civil and sacred. These societies are closely leagued with those of the same Order, in Europe; they have all the same object in view. The enemies of all order are seeking our ruin. Should infidelity generally prevail, our independence would fall of course. Our republican government would be annihilated..."

It has been suggested, that one of the reasons that the British looted and burned Washington in 1812, was to destroy secret documents that would have exposed the treason against the United States, by various people highly placed within the government.

When those advocating a strong central government organized the Federalist Party in 1791, the Anti-Federalists, who favored states' rights, and were against Alexander Hamilton's (Secretary of Treasury under Washington, 1789-1795) fiscal policies, which they felt benefited the wealthy, rallied under Thomas Jefferson, Washington's first Secretary of State (1789-93). They became an organized political party after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, led by New York Governor George Clinton (who was later Vice-President under Jefferson and Madison), Patrick Henry of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts (a signer of the Declaration of Independence). The Anti-Federalists were made up of the low class, farmers, and paper money advocates, who strongly opposed a strong central government as set forth in the U.S. Constitution of 1789, and succeeded in getting the Bill of Rights added. They were against a single, national government, upper class rule, and a weak program for the separation of powers.

The Jeffersonian Republicans, so named because of the anti-monarchy views of the Anti-Federalists, had power from 1801-1825. In 1796, the party split into the Democratic-Republicans, organized by New York State Senator Martin Van Buren (who became our 8th President, 1837-41), who concerned themselves with states' rights, farmers' interests and democratic procedures; and the National Republicans, led by John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster, who merged with the Federalists in 1820. In 1826, the Democratic-Republicans became known as just plain Democrats, while the National Republicans became identified as only Republicans in 1854. That is how the two-party system was created in this country.