Unlike the Freemasons (Freemasonry), early modern secret societies kept their activities, aims, and even their very existence secret. These Enlightenment societies were established in the masonic orbit, and organized on the masonic model, across Europe from the 1760s on. Their aim was to attain direct political influence through education, leading to self-perfection and an ensuing “march through the institutions.” They thus posed a threat to the absolutist state and its monopoly on political power (Absolutism).

The “right” wing of this spectrum of para-masonic or …