words the manner of enlisting proselytes by the Ismailis:

They proceeded to the admission and initiation of new proselytes
only by degrees and with great reserve; for, as the sect had at the
same time a political object and ambitions, its interest was above
all to have a great number of partisans in all places and in all
classes of society. It was necessary therefore to suit themselves
to the character, the temperament, and the prejudices of the
greater number; what one revealed to some would have revolted
others and alienated for ever spirits less bold and consciences
more easily alarmed.[495]

This passage exactly describes the methods laid down by Weishaupt for
his "Insinuating Brothers"--the necessity of proceeding with caution in
the enlisting of adepts, of not revealing to the novice doctrines that
might be likely to revolt him, of "speaking sometimes in one way,
sometimes in another, so that one's real purpose should remain
impenetrable" to members of the inferior grades.

How did these Oriental methods penetrate to the Bavarian professor?
According to certain writers, through the Jesuits. The fact that
Weishaupt had been brought up by this Order has provided the enemies of
the Jesuits with the argument that they were the secret inspirers of the
Illuminati. Mr. Gould, indeed, has attributed most of the errors of the
latter to this source; Weishaupt, he writes, incurred "the implacable
enmity of the Jesuits, to whose intrigues he was incessantly exposed."[496]
In reality precisely the opposite was the case, for, as we shall
see, it was Weishaupt who perpetually intrigued against the Jesuits.
That Weishaupt did, however, draw to a certain extent on Jesuit methods
of training is recognized even by Barruel, himself a Jesuit, who,
quoting Mirabeau, says that Weishaupt "admired above all those laws,
that _regime_ of the Jesuits, which, under one head, made men dispersed
over the universe tend towards the same goal; he felt that one could
imitate their methods whilst holding views diametrically opposed."[497]
And again, on the evidence of Mirabeau, de Luchet, and von Knigge,
Barruel says elsewhere: "It is here that Weishaupt appears specially to
have wished to assimilate the regime of the sect to that of the
religious orders and, above all, that of the Jesuits, by the total
abandonment of their own will and judgement which he demands of his
adepts ..." But Barruel goes on