John Robison (4 February 1739 – 30 January 1805) was a Scottish physicist and mathematician who was also a professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. A member of the Edinburgh Philosophical Society when it received its royal warrant, he was appointed as the first General Secretary to the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1783-98). Robison invented the siren and also worked with James Watt on an early steam car.
However, following the French Revolution, Robison became disenchanted with elements of the Enlightenment and became one of the world’s most influential conspiracy theorists. He authored Proofs of a Conspiracy in 1797, a polemic accusing Freemasonry of being infiltrated by Weishaupt's Order of the Illuminati. Robison and French priest Abbé Barruel independently developed similar views that the Illuminati had infiltrated Continental Freemasonry, leading to the excesses of the French Revolution. In 1798, the Reverend G. W. Snyder sent Robison's book to George Washington for his thoughts on the subject, in which he replied to him in his Letter to the Reverend G. W. Snyder (24 October 1798).
Modern conspiracy theorists like Nesta Webster and William Guy Carr believe that Robison's book described how the Illuminati created the template for the subversion of otherwise benign organizations by radical groups through the 19th and 20th centuries. Today the Illuminati is also used to refer to a purported conspiratorial organization which acts as a shadowy "power behind the throne", allegedly controlling world affairs through present day governments and corporations, usually as a modern incarnation or continuation of the Bavarian Illuminati. In this context, the Illuminati are believed to be the masterminds behind events that will lead to the establishment of a New World Order.
This edition of Robison’s Proofs of a Conspiracy is specially formatted with a Table of Contents.
