Press Articles

The Secret School of Wisdom: The Authentic Rituals and Doctrines of the Illuminati by Josef Wäges, Reinhard Markner, and Jeva Singh-Anand is gaining momentum internationally. Comprising the entire ritual body of the Bavarian Illuminati for the first time since the order’s dissolution over 200 years ago, the book received the Regulus Award for Distinguished Service to the Scholarly Community on May 29 at the first World Conference on Fraternalism, Freemasonry, and History. The conference is a biannual three-day event in Paris, convened by the Policy Studies Organization and visited by scholars from around the world.

The conference organizers noted that The Secret School of Wisdom provided scholars for the first time with“reliable information about what has been a myth in popular literature and on the Web, and thus opens up new possibilities for research.” Wäges and Markner, the editors of the book, traveled to Paris to receive the award, presenting a lecture on the Illuminati the following day.

Josef Wäges is a Freemason, historian, and author of the forthcoming book The Columbian Illuminati.

Reinhard Markner is a German historian and philologist. An expert in early modern secret societies, he is the chief editor of Die Korrespondenz des Illuminatenordens (2 vols, 2005/13). He is a member of the Gotha Research Centre at the University of Erfurt and currently works as a researcher at the University of Innsbruck.

Jeva Singh-Anand is a Freemason and professional translator specializing in eighteenth century German literary texts. He has translated over a half dozen works relating to Freemasonry and the Bavarian Illuminati.

Founded in 1973, the Policy Studies Organization is a nonprofit organization publishing a number of academic journals and books across a broad spectrum of academic disciplines and organizing around twenty events at major universities annually. According to the PSO website, it was established as an outgrowth of the American Political Science Association, for academics and researchers who were interested in how public policy and organizational policy were being studied and discussed.

The conference was co-sponsored by the National Library of France and the American Public Library.