1776 was a significant year, the date of the American Revolution, of the publication of Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' and - far less well-known but equally momentous - the founding, by Adam Weishaupt, of the Order of the Illuminati. Weishaupt was a respected professor of Canon Law at Germany's Ingolstadt University. He conceived the Illuminati as "a durable combination of the most worthy persons, who should work together in removing the obstacles to human happiness.... Would not such an association be a blessing to the world?" But while the American Revolution strove for the 'pursuit of happiness' via forthright, open revolution, Weishaupt envisioned that the Illuminati would shape the fate of nations, and eventually the world, from the shadows, working behind the scenes to infiltrate and subvert a host of organizations, effecting change and revolution by stealth. A secret Order dedicated to covert conspiracy. John Robison, a distinguished Professor of philosophy at Edinburgh University, took it upon himself to discover all he could of the Illuminati Order's structure and schemes. His book, when first published in 1798, caused a sensation in Europe and America. It has remained one of the most important source works for the study of this most enigmatic (and some would claim diabolical) of secret societies.

"Proofs of a Conspiracy" was written by John Robison, a Scottish professor, to warn Britain and other kingdoms that the forces which toppled the French monarchy and started The Terror were still active. In his book, Robison traced the story of the 1776 founding of the Bavarian Illuminati by Adam Weishaupt, a professor at Ingolstadt and the suppression of the order by the royal and church authorities of Bavaria in 1785. The Illuminists went underground all over Europe and used existing Masonic lodges or set up their own as a cover for their activities. In Paris, the Duc d'Orleans headed the Illuminist front called the Grand Orient Lodge, his base to conspire against the ruling House of Bourbon. The English and Scottish lodges were generally apolitical amd many worked actively to keep out Illuminists as insincere applicants, but Robison maintained that some continental lodges remained hotbeds of revolutionary plotting, and therefore dangerous, at the time he wrote. Robison was a contemporary and collaborator with James Watt (with whom he worked on an early steam car), contributor to the 1797 Encylopedia Britannica, professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, and inventor of the siren. Although Robison was very much an advocate of science and rationalism, he became an ardent monarchist later in life due to his disillusionment with the French Revolution. In "Proofs of a Conspiracy," Robison laid the groundwork for modern conspiracy theorists by implicating the Bavarian Illuminati as responsible for the excesses of the French Revolution. The Bavarian Illuminati had an inner core of true believers, who secretly held radical atheist, anti-monarchist and possibly proto-feminist views, at that time considered beyond the pale. They recruited by infiltrating the numerous (and otherwise benign) Freemasonic groups which were active at the time on the continent. Today, the Illuminati have today become a byword for a secret society which hoodwinks its junior members and puppet-masters society at large-a reputation which is in no little part due to Robison's book.