These lodges were the catacombs of a new worship.

The sect of _illumines_, founded and guided by Weishaupt, was spreading in Germany in conjunction with the _freemasons_ and the _rosicrucians_.

The _theosophists_ in their turn produced the symbols of supernatural perfection, and enrolled all susceptible minds and ardent imaginations around dogmata full of love and infinity.

The theosophists, the Swedenborgians, disciples of the sublime but obscure Swedenborg, the Saint Martin of Germany, pretended to complete the Gospel, and to transform humanity by overcoming death and the senses.

All these dogmata were mingled in an equal contempt for existing institutions in one same aspiration for the renewal of the mind and things.