Antoine-Joseph Pernety

Who was Antoine-Joseph Pernety?

Antoine-Joseph Pernety, known as Dom Pernety was a French writer. At various times he was a Benedictine, and librarian of Frederic the Great of Prussia. Together with the Polish Count Tadeusz Grabianka, also influenced by the Christian mysticism of Swedenborg he founded in 1760 the secret society of ‘Rite hermétique’ or Illuminati of Avignon.

Pernety took part in the 1763-64 expedition under Louis Antoine de Bougainville that established the Port Saint Louis settlement in the Falkland Islands, and published a two-volume account of his nature exploration of the Falklands and the Brazilian island of Santa Catarina. In particular, he gave the first description of the Falklands stone runs phenomenon.

In 1767 Pernety moved to Berlin. In 1779 he became a member of Illuminés of Avignon. In 1780 the oracle "la Sainte Parole" began to advice the Illuminés of Avignon to leave Berlin to establish elsewhere the foundations of a new Sion. In 1783 Pernety left Berlin at the command of the oracle. In October 1784 the oracle told the group that it should move to Avignon. In 1793 Illuminés of Avignon were suppressed by law.