Using deception and intrigue, Weishaupt and his inner circle of adepts succeeded at gaining the support of Germany's Masonic lodges. "All these branches were controlled by the twelve leading adepts headed by Weishaupt, who at the lodge in Munich held in his hands the threads of the whole conspiracy" (Nesta Webster, World Revolution, p.20). Mackey admits to the initial success of the Illuminati, commenting:The Order was at first very popular, and enrolled no less than two thousand names upon its registers, among whom were some of the most distinguished men of Germany. It extended rapidly into other countries, and its Lodges were to be found in France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, and Italy (Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, p.346-347).
In 1782, at the Masonic Congress of Wilhelmsbad, Weishaupt's Illuminati solidified its position among Europe's secret societies as the undisputed leader of the occult one-world movement. Around the same time, Weishaupt also succeeded at forging an alliance between Illuminized Freemasonry and the growing Rothschild banking network, thereby giving the Order the financial means to begin to carry out its plans (Webster, World Revolution, p.20 and Count Egon Caesar Corti, The Rise of the House of Rothschild. Boston: Western Islands, 1972, p.ix).
As a result of this alliance with the international financiers, the Freemasons regained the banking prominence once held by the Templars, and the Illuminati gained momentum. H.L. Haywood observes, "It took root, it grew, it flourished, it gathered into itself more men of royal and noble titles than were possessed by the Hohenzollern family; even the Jesuits joined it" (Haywood, Famous Masons and Masonic Presidents, 151-152).
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