Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/543

* ILLUMINATI. 469 ILLUSION. hcterodoxos e»panoles (Madrid, 1880). (2) A group of entlmsiasts and visionaries, known as (Juerinets, in France about 1G84. (3) An asso- ciation of mystics in Belgium in the latter half of the eighteenth century. (4) A society to which the name is now most commonly applied, the Order of the Uhiminati. which was founded at Ingolstadt on Jlay 1, 1776, and soon spread over almost all the Roman Catholic parts of Ger- many. Its founder at first called it the 'Order of the Perfectibilists.' It owed its existence to Adam Weishaupt, professor of canon law at Ingolstadt, a man of superior abilities and much benevolence, but deficient in practical knowledge of mankind. Impatient of restraints imposed on the luiraan mind, he conceived the idea of forming an association which should consist of the choicest spirits. labor for the' establishment of the dominion of reason, and promote religious and political enlightenment and emancipation. Religious dogmas and forms of worship were to be rejected, a system of deism was to be propagated together with republican opinions. The accession of Baron von Knigge to the new Order, and the support which it received from the Freemasons, led to its rapid extension. Weis- haupt's knowledge of the Order of the Jesuits, whose pupil he had been, led him to borrow some of the methods of organization which had proved so .successful in their hands for build- ing up a strong and united system, though he meant to use them for the most opposite ends. His arrangements were calculated to place the threads a'.l in one liand bv which the on June 22, 1784, an edict was issued by the Elector of Bavaria for its suppression, which was followed by others JIarch 2. 1785, of a more drastic character, and under the prosecution en- suing the Order was suppressed. Weishaupt was removed from his professorship. He returned to Gotha, where he wa.s received and died as Court Councilor, in 1830, at the age of 82. Various other members were severely punished, and the form of justice was not strictly observed in the proceedings against them. Great im- portance was at one time attached to the Order of the Illuminati, whose secret influence was re- garded as a principal cause of many of the political events of the time of the French Revo- lution. Consult KIoss, Bihliographie der Frei- maurerei und der mit ihr in Verbindung gesetzteii grheimen Gesellschaften (Frankfort, 1844). ILLUMINATING. See JIaxusckipts, Illu- MI.VATIOX OF. ILLTJPI, il'lu-pl (East Indian name), IL- LUPIE, ELLOOPA (Bassia longifolia). An East Indian evergreen tree. The bark is pre- scribed in cases of itch; the gummy juice is em- ployed as a remedy for rheumatism ; the leaves and the milky juice of the immature fruit are also used in medicine; the flowers, roasted or boiled, furnish an article of food, and the seeds yield a greenish fixed oil, known as illupi-oil. ILLUSION (from Lat. illusio, mockery, from illudere, to mock, from in, in -- ludere, to play). In general, a distorted or abnormal perception (q.v.). The word is used in English psychology ^ 10 II Fia. 1. ILLUSIONS OF REVERSIBLE I'ERflPECTivE (from TitflnMier, Esperinjental Psycbolof^y). Notice that even while you loolc at the figures, without changing the position of the book, the tops of the figures appear now awaj from and now toward jou. holy legion was to be led on, as it was imag- ined, to the benefaction of mankind. But, from this cause, the dissolution of the Order soon ensued. Weishaupt and Knigge, its two leaders, quarreled with one another. The Order be- gan to be openly denounced as dangerous, and in two principal senses : ( 1 ) As the counterpart of hallucination (q.v.), "an assimilation of an hallucinatory character" (Wundt), a distortion or misinterpretation of the contents of percep- tion, due to an abnormal irritability of the sen- sory centres of the brain-cortex. The distortion