THE DESCENT OF BOLSHEVISM
prove that among its secret practices the so-called disciplina arcani often became a bacchanalian orgy. For, all the pastoral and social virtues to the contrary, sensual pleasures were restored to the rank they hold in the Epicurean philosophy—but not openly proclaimed.
Herein they differ from the Bacchanalians of Rome, who, in the sixth century of the Republic, tried to cover with the wine-stained mantle of their god the most nefarious designs against the established authorities of the City and the State. But the Illuminati were secret worshippers of Bacchus, while they pretended to be votaries of Ceres. That they took the names of the heroes of antiquity in vain, is the least of their sins. And while secretly preparing their "pestilential vapors" and poison gases for the human race, formally and on stoical principles, they santioned only self-murder. They little realized, in doing this, that they were invoking in their justification the memory of Judas. Indeed, as far as they, at least, were concerned, Judas
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