User:ChristelPersse0

Though the Bavarian Illuminati may have been dead by the mid-1780s, Barruel’s insinuation gave it new life. Whispers of these dangerous atheists found their way first to England with the publication of John Robison’s 1797 pamphlet, Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe Carried on in the Secret Meetings of the Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies. A Freemason himself, Robison worried the irreligious Illuminati had gained control of join the Illuminati Masonic organization and perverted it and was now working to root “out all the religious establishments, and overturning all the existing governments of Europe.”

Robison’s warnings of the Illuminati reached the United States at a vulnerable time. Still forming their more perfect union, Americans felt acutely vulnerable to foreign interference. But by the late 1790s, this anxiety had broken along partisan lines. Federalists feared that France’s revolutionaries were bent on turning Americans against their nascent government, whereas Jeffersonian Republicans worried instead that Great Britain was scheming to reclaim its former colonies.