<a href="http://mikejay.net/articles/darkness-over-all/" target="_blank"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1079" style="border: 0; float: left; margin: 8px;" title="john_robison_portait" src="http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/john_robison_portait.jpg" alt="" /></a>This <a href="http://mikejay.net/articles/darkness-over-all/" target="_blank">unpublished essay</a> by historian and SAJ contributor Mike Jay examines the origins of the Illuminati mythos in the imagination of establishment scientist and mathematician John Robison.

The unrestrained outpourings of a once brilliant mind, Robison's paranoid epic seems to have been fuelled by physical torment – eased only by heavy-duty opium use – and the fear that the brutal horrors of Revolution would expand from France to overrun all of Europe. 

Robison's <em>Proofs of a Conspiracy</em> was a runaway best seller in the tense climate of the late 18th century and would become the blueprint for all future conspiracy literature.

Fascinating stuff as always, from Mr Jay. 

<a href="http://mikejay.net/articles/darkness-over-all/" target="_blank"><em>'Darkness Over All:
John Robison and the birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy</em></a>

read Robison's <a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/sro/pc/index.htm" target="_blank">Proofs of a Conspiracy</a>