"Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery. The hankering of the mind is irresistible" .

-- Adam Weishaupt

Adam Weishaupt was born and raised in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany.

According to Encyplopedia Britannica, Adam Weishaupt, a professor of canon law, founded the Order of Illuminati (“Enlightened Ones”) in Bavaria. According to other sources, he created the order on May 1, 1776 as the "Order of Perfectibilists" which only became the Order of Illuminati later on and adopted the name of "Brother Spartacus" within the order.

Winston Churchill, Freemasonic, looking back at the Russian Revolution just a few years earlier, mentioned his name in the Sunday Illustrated Herald, London, February 8, 1920:

“From the days of Spartacus Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx (Moses Mordecai Levy) and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kuhn (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence and impossible equality, has been steadily growing.”

"Weishaupt, who took refuge in Gotha, survived forty-four years to inquisitorial persecutions in Bavaria, diying on 1830 Novembre 18th. In those years, he wrote phylosophy treatises and, at last, just like Adolf von Knigge, he betrayed his own work.

It seems that being the head of a numerous family, Weishaupt changed his points of view in religious and politic matter, and he became more conservative and sober. After 1787, in fact, he renounced to all active connection with initiatic orders and he approached the church, becoming in a kind of Christian foundamentalist and using an important zeal in construct the Catholic church of Gotha. It is recorded in documents of Catholic church. Adam Weishaupt died on 1830 November 18th, "reconciled with Catholic church, that he condemned to death and destruction when he was a young teacher", Gotha parish church explains."