Secrets of the Illuminati: the Top-Secret Society With Plans to Rule the World
So what, exactly, is fueling stories about an all-powerful sect of celebs and gazillionaires who use spy-like protocols to keep their identities a secret?
The rise of the Illuminati
Adam Weishaupt, a Bavarian professor of canon law, started the radical Illuminati secret society in Europe in 1776 when he was 28 years old. Anti-clerical and anti-royal, the Illuminati aimed to infiltrate and upset powerful institutions. They created a plan for the global subversion of church, state, royalty, and society.
Weishaupt aimed to abolish all religions and obliterate every government so mankind could live happily in a world of equality. He foresaw the economy operating under a ‘communism of goods’ structure overseen by an enlightened (illuminated) elite over which he presided.
The Order was represented by the Owl of Minerva, which in Greek mythology traditionally accompanies Athena the virgin goddess of wisdom. Another Illuminati emblem was a dot within a circle that symbolized the all-seeing eye which belonged not to God, but to a superior Illuminati watching over the lower ranks.
The Illuminati spy structure
The Illuminati adopted antique codenames to avoid identification. Weishaupt was ‘Brother Spartacus’, named after the gladiator who headed the insurrection of slaves and kept Rome in terror for three years. Weishaupt aimed to find young zealots - using Freemason lodges as a recruiting ground - and knit them together with secrecy. Initially, anyone over 30 wasn’t trusted.
The lower ranks were divided into hierarchies of Novices, Minervals, and Illuminated Minervals, and divided into cells. Weishaupt acted as their spymaster.
“When he could not persuade them by his own firmness... he employed Jesuitical tricks, causing them to fall out with each other, setting them as spies on each other, and separating any two that he saw attached to each other, by making the one a Master of the other; and, in short, he left nothing undone that could secure his uncontrolled command,” according to John Robison, author of Proofs of a Conspiracy.
Recruits had to supply the names of their ancestors, relations, friends, correspondents, and enemies. They were asked to recommend appropriate people to be received into the Order and to list those who might be unfit, justifying reasons for both opinions. They were told to pay attention to the conduct of other men around them and report back weekly about public or private occurrences.
The threat of death
After three years of one-on-one study with their Illuminati tutor, recruits were asked to sign an oath to uphold the society’s goals upon the punishment of death.
“A drawn sword is then pointed at his breast, and he is asked: ‘Will you be obedient to the commands of your Superiors?’ He is threatened with unavoidable vengeance, from which no potentate [monarch/ruler] can defend him if he should ever betray the Order,” Robison said.
Plans were underway for two sisterhoods, he added, both subservient to male Illuminati - one sisterhood made up of women of virtue, the other of women ‘who fly out of the common track of prudish manners’. Neither sisterhood was to know about the other.
The power of the Illuminati
The Barvarian Illuminati insinuated themselves into public offices and courts of justice. Estimates about the group’s size vary greatly - some put the figure at 650, others at 2,500 - but, eventually, the secret society was exposed and persecuted. Documents found in the homes of Illuminati like diplomat Franx Xavier von Zwack confirmed their dreams of world domination.
The Duke of Bavaria, Karl Theodor, banned secret societies in In 1785 and instituted punishments for anyone who joined them. But did the Illuminati really dissolve?
Robison and Abbé Augustin Barruel, authors of Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, argue that the Illuminati survived, having infiltrated a Berlin literary society and Masonic lodges. They point out that Weishaupt was banished but not imprisoned, so he carried on writing and working. Barruel even promoted a theory that secret societies, including the Illuminati, were behind the French Revolution.
The American Illuminati
By 1798, fears about the dangerous sect had reached the US. George Washington wrote an open letter indicating the US had avoided the Illuminati threat, but just the mention of the secret society helped revive the topic and the fear.
Rumors of secret alliances and double-crossings plagued early-American elections.
The Illuminati Eye of Providence
Many Illuminati-watchers in America believe that the ‘Eye of Providence’ - the eye-in-a-triangle found on the back of the US dollar bill and Great Seal of the United States - is an Illuminati symbol linking the European sect to the highest echelons of US government and corridors of power. It appears on numerous churches and Masonic buildings worldwide and is linked to Freemasonry.
In fact, the all-knowing eye was originally a symbol of Christianity, found in religious art of the Renaissance period to represent God, such as in Pontormo’s Supper at Emmaus. Noone is quite certain who invented it, but it appears to be tied to religious motifs as the triangle is a symbol of the Christian Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But what about the eye?
Ancient Egyptians used the detached eye as a motif. Among the most famous of all Egyptian symbols is the Eye of Horus.
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Illuminati
Illuminati, designation in use from the 15th century, assumed by or applied to various groups of persons who claimed to be unusually enlightened. The word is the plural of the Latin illuminatus (“revealed” or “enlightened”).
Early Illuminati
According to adherents, the source of the “light” was viewed as being directly communicated from a higher source or due to a clarified and exalted condition of the human intelligence. To the former class belong the Alumbrados (Spanish: “enlightened”) of Spain.
Spanish historian Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo first finds the name about 1492 (in the form aluminados, 1498) but traces them back to a gnostic origin and thinks their views were promoted in Spain through influences from Italy. One of their earliest leaders—indeed, some scholars style her as a “pre-Alumbrado”—was MarÃa de Santo Domingo, who came to be known as La Beata de Piedrahita. She was a labourer’s daughter, born in Aldeanueva, south of Salamanca, about 1485. She joined the Dominican order as a teenager and soon achieved renown as a prophet and mystic who could converse directly with Jesus Christ and the Virgin. Ferdinand of Aragon invited her to his court, and he became convinced of the sincerity of her visions. The Dominicans appealed to Pope Julius II for guidance, and a series of trials were convened under the auspices of the Inquisition. Her patrons, which by then included not only Ferdinand but also Francisco Cardenal Jiménez de Cisneros and the duke of Alba, ensured that no decision was taken against her, and she was cleared in 1510.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, while studying at Salamanca (1527), was brought before an ecclesiastical commission on a charge of sympathy with the Alumbrados, but he escaped with an admonition. Others were not so fortunate. In 1529 a congregation of unlettered adherents at Toledo was visited with scourging and imprisonment. Greater rigours followed, and for about a century the Alumbrados afforded many victims to the Inquisition, especially at Córdoba.
The movement (under the name of Illuminés) seems to have reached France from Seville in 1623. It attained some prominence in Picardy when joined (1634) by Pierre Guérin, curé of Saint-Georges de Roye, whose followers, known as Guerinets, were suppressed in 1635. Another body of Illuminés surfaced in the south of France in 1722 and appears to have lingered till 1794, having affinities with those known contemporaneously as “French Prophets,” an offshoot of the Protestant militant Camisards.
Of a different class were the Rosicrucians, who claimed to have originated in 1422 but achieved public notice in 1537. Their teachings combined something of Egyptian Hermetism, Christian gnosticism, Jewish Kabbala, alchemy, and a variety of other occult beliefs and practices. The earliest extant writing which mentions the Rosicrucian order was the Fama Fraternitatis, first published in 1614 but probably circulated in manuscript form somewhat earlier than this. It recounts the journey of the reputed founder of the movement, Christian Rosenkreuz, to Damascus, Damcar (a legendary hidden city in Arabia), Egypt, and Fès, where he was well received and came into possession of much secret wisdom. He returned finally to Germany, where he chose three others to whom he imparted this wisdom and thus founded the order. Later the number was increased to eight, who separated, each going to a separate country. One of the six articles of agreement they adopted was that the fraternity should remain secret for 100 years. At the end of 120 years the secret burial place and the perfectly preserved body of the founder were discovered by one of the then members of the order, along with certain documents and symbols held in very high esteem by Rosicrucians. The sacred vault was re-covered, the members of the order dispersed, and the location of the vault was lost to history. The Fama ends with an invitation to “some few” to join the fraternity. Among those believed to have been associated with the order were German alchemist Michael Maier, British physician Robert Fludd, and British philosopher and statesman Sir Francis Bacon.
The Bavarian illuminati
Perhaps the group most closely associated with the name illuminati was a short-lived movement of republican free thought founded on May Day 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, professor of canon law at Ingolstadt and a former Jesuit. The members of this secret society called themselves “Perfectibilists.” Their founder’s aim was to replace Christianity with a religion of reason, as later did the revolutionaries of France and the 19th-century positivist philosopher Auguste Comte. The order was organized along Jesuit lines and kept internal discipline and a system of mutual surveillance based on that model. Its members pledged obedience to their superiors and were divided into three main classes: the first included “novices,” “minervals,” and “lesser illuminati”; the second consisted of freemasons (“ordinary,” “Scottish,” and “Scottish knights”); and the third or “mystery” class comprised two grades of “priest” and “regent” as well as “magus” and “king.”
Beginning with a narrow circle of disciples carefully selected from among his own students, Weishaupt gradually extended his recruitment efforts from Ingolstadt to Eichstätt, Freising, Munich, and elsewhere, with special attention being given to the enlistment of young men of wealth, rank, and social importance. From 1778 onward Weishaupt’s illuminati began to make contact with various Masonic lodges, where, under the impulse of Adolf Franz Friedrich, Freiherr von Knigge, one of their chief converts, they often managed to gain a commanding position, It was to Knigge that the society was indebted for the extremely elaborate constitution (never, however, actually realized) as well as its internal communication system. Each member of the order had given him a special name, generally classical, by which he alone was addressed in official writing (Weishaupt was referred to as Spartacus while Knigge was Philo). All internal correspondence was conducted in cipher, and to increase the mystification, towns and provinces were invested with new and altogether arbitrary designations.
At its period of greatest development, Weishaupt’s “Bavarian Illuminati” included in its operations a very wide area, extending from Italy to Denmark and from Warsaw to Paris; at no time, however, do its numbers appear to have exceeded 2,000. The order and its doctrines appealed to literary giants such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Johann Gottfried von Herder as well as the dukes Ernest II of Gotha and Charles Augustus of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Such notables were claimed as members although it is questionable if they were actually so. Weishaupt’s illuminati were believed to have included astronomer Johann Bode, writer and bookseller Friedrich Nicolai, philosopher Friedrich Jacobi, and poet Friedrich Leopold, Graf zu Stolberg-Stolberg.
Secret societies of this kind fitted in with the idea of benevolent despotism as a vehicle for the Enlightenment, as Goethe shows in Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. The movement suffered from internal dissension and was ultimately banned by an edict of the Bavarian government in 1785. Some members were imprisoned, while others were driven from their homes. Weishaupt was stripped of his chair at Ingolstadt and banished from Bavaria. After 1785 the historical record contains no further activities of Weishaupt’s illuminati, but the order figured prominently in conspiracy theories for centuries after its disbanding. It was credited with activities ranging from the instigation of the French Revolution to the assassination of U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy, and the notion of an all-knowing cabal of ancient masters remained a powerful image in the popular consciousness into the 21st century.
Later illuminati
After the suppression of Weishaupt’s order, the title illuminati was given to the French Martinists, founded in 1754 by Martinez Pasqualis and propagated by Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. By 1790 Martinism had been spread to Russia by Johann Georg Schwarz and Nikolay Novikov. Both strains of “illuminated” Martinism included elements of Kabbalism and Christian mysticism, imbibing ideas from Jakob Böhme and Emanuel Swedenborg.
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The Illuminati
The Illuminati, originally known as the Order of the Illuminati, was an elite organization founded in Bavaria by Adam Weishaupt in 1776, aimed at instigating spiritual and political transformation. At its height, the group grew from five to over 2,000 members across Europe, comprising influential leaders who opposed entrenched superstitions and political oppression. The Illuminati sought to promote Enlightenment ideals, emphasizing reason and knowledge over tradition. However, the organization faced opposition and was outlawed by the Bavarian government in 1785, which led some to speculate that it went underground and continues to exert influence in modern society.
Weishaupt's vision included a secretive committee that would replace traditional government and religious institutions with a more moral and virtuous system. The Illuminati operated with a hierarchical structure, divided into levels such as Novice, Minerval, and Illuminated Minerval, with rigorous initiation processes. Some believe that the legacy of the Illuminati persists through contemporary fraternal organizations, with claims that it has played a role in significant historical events and continues to influence global affairs today. The group's blend of mysticism and political ambition has fostered ongoing intrigue and speculation surrounding its existence and impact.
The Order of the Illuminati was an elite organization widely believed to have been founded in Bavaria by Adam Weishaupt in 1776 with the primary goal of bringing about spiritual and political change. The organization’s members included forward-thinking, influential leaders from the top tiers of society who opposed what they considered to be culturally entrenched superstition, prejudice, religious oppression, and political abuse. The group swiftly swelled from its original five members to more than 2,000 participants in branches all across Europe at its peak. The Order of the Illuminati had become a substantial political force throughout the world by the time the Pope mandated its demise less than a decade after it emerged. In 1785, the Bavarian government made it a criminal offense to join or support the Order of the Illuminati. Some contend that the group went underground and continues to secretly wield influence over global politics and industry.
Background
Adam Weishaupt was born in 1748 in Ingolstadt, Germany. When his father passed away seven years later, Weishaupt was placed under the care of the Jesuits for his early education. By that time, the Jesuits had gained a stronghold within Bavarian politics and education. The Jesuits were the most influential group in Germany, despite having been suppressed in other countries due to supposed occult practices and subversive leanings.
In 1773, Weishaupt became chairman of natural and canon law at the University of Ingolstadt, which was still under strong Jesuit dominance. By then, Weishaupt had warmed to emerging Enlightenment philosophies that were in direct opposition to Jesuit beliefs and behaviors centered on control and supremacy. He quickly became convinced that the world would benefit from the overthrow of all government and religious institutions. His goal was to replace the institutional establishment with members from a global, selective, and secretive committee that combined spiritualism and politics under a collective sphere of influence which fostered morality and virtue over the perceived decadence and dishonesty permeating society.
To achieve his vision, Weishaupt sought to combine what he had learned from the Jesuits about power and persuasion with his knowledge of increasingly popular occultism. He considered trying to infiltrate the Freemasons with his ideas but ultimately decided the best course of action would be to create his own secret society with select members who would embrace and propagate his views. After the Order of the Illuminati was outlawed—and many believe well before that time—members of the group may have integrated into the Freemason organization, which continues to operate in contemporary times. Modern Masons position themselves as members of a selective interest group that promotes equality and service in society.
Some researchers assert that the Illuminati can trace its roots much further back than eighteenth-century Bavaria. They claim that some of the central philosophies of the order hearken back to the teachings of the Knights Templar, which emerged in the twelfth century as an elite war machine that amassed tremendous political and economic power and asserted significant influence on society while crusading across Europe and the Middle East in the name of religion.
Overview
The Order of the Illuminati originating in eighteenth-century Bavaria was somewhat a product of its times. At that period in history, Europe was entrenched in what is known today as the Age of Enlightenment. Starting late in the seventeenth century many of Europe’s intellectual elite became part of a cultural movement that sought to challenge the status quo in society by emphasizing knowledge over superstition and tradition. In much the same way, the Order of the Illuminati was made up of freethinking leaders who sought to instigate a departure from the political and cultural norms of the day through an orchestrated web of influence, authority, and action.
Weishaupt’s Illuminati became very popular very quickly, exploding from its original five members in Bavaria to some 2,000 active followers across Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Sweden by the time it was forced to disband just nine years later. Each member of the order—many of whom are believed to have been recruited from practicing Masonic groups—was required to take a vow of secrecy and pledge unwavering obedience to higher-ranking members of the organization.
There were three main levels of authority within the original Illuminati membership base: Novice, Minerval, and Illuminated Minerval. Entry-level (Novice) members of the order were new recruits who had been enticed by promises of enhanced wisdom, personal betterment, and insight into the occult. Novices were shown some of the workings of the order’s Jesuit-like, hierarchical organization but were not made privy to the Illuminati’s political aspirations or intricate power plays.
A Novice who proved to be dedicated to the order and worthy of advancement was promoted to the next level of membership, Minerval. At this second tier of membership, indoctrination into the Order of the Illuminati’s spiritual principles began through formal instruction. Members at the Minerval level were given the privilege to meet and engage in discussions with some of the superior-ranking members of the order, which acted as a strong motivator for new initiates.
Select members from the Minerval class were elevated to the rank of Illuminated Minerval. These elite members were given specific tasks to complete within the order to prepare them for making a mark for the Illuminati cause in the outside world. Toward that end, Illuminated Minervals were educated about human nature and ways to direct it in support of the order’s cause. Each Illuminated Minerval was charged with overseeing a small group of Minervals and guiding them along the Illuminati path.
Additional higher levels that mirrored those of the Freemason brotherhood were added to the Illuminati hierarchy after a German diplomat named Adolf Franz Friederich Knigge joined Weishaupt’s order around 1780. Knigge had significant ties to the Freemasons and is said to have helped pave the way for integration between the Masonic system and the Illuminati.
There are those today who believe that the Order of the Illuminati has been perpetuated through fraternal organizations for centuries. According to some, several key historical events have been driven by the workings of the Illuminati, including the French and American Revolutions, both world wars, and even the rise of communism. Among believers, the group’s rich and powerful members continue to brandish influence over contemporary business, politics, and culture throughout the world.
The Illuminati and Modern Popular Culture
Theories of Illuminati influence have surfaced within the entertainment world and have spread throughout the United States via the ubiquitous and increasingly accessible platforms available through the Internet. In its modern form, the Illuminati has also become associated with Satan and dark magic. These accusations have infiltrated almost every aspect of popular culture, including literature, art, television, and films. Author Dan Brown's novel Angels & Demons, the forerunner to his worldwide bestseller The Da Vinci Code, even features a version of the Illuminati and a fictional plot by the society to destroy its enemy, the Catholic Church.
Perhaps the cultural arena most saturated with suspected Illuminati presence has become the music industry. Successful musicians in genres ranging from popular music to rap have been accused of affiliations with the supposedly defunct society. Some believe that the increased number of lyrics and performances that seem to reference or symbolize the group and its philosophy indicates that the music industry has actually come under the control of the Illuminati. In response to insinuations of her involvement, iconic singer Madonna included a song titled "Illuminati" on a 2015 album, explaining her definition of the society and who belonged. After vocalist and former Christian Katy Perry performed during the halftime show of the Super Bowl early that year in front of millions of fans and viewers, conspiracy theorists took to the Internet to continue labelling her as an Illuminati, citing everything from her lyrics to props and stage design. Such discussions further prove that at least the idea of the Illuminati has and will remain in the cultural conscience.
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Unveiling the Illuminati: The Real Society Behind the Myths and Conspiracy Theories
There really was a secret society called the Illuminati that aimed to create a New World Order.
1. The Illuminati were founded in 1776 by a disgruntled scholar.
He was a 28-year-old called Adam Weishaupt, a professor at the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria. This era was a high point of the Enlightenment in Europe, which gave rise to a new kind of rational, secular thought. Weishaupt was becoming increasingly frustrated with the control that former Jesuit priests were exerting, not only on the university but on his career, he decided that in order to give expression to the kind of enlightenment that he wanted to see percolate throughout Germany and throughout the world, he would form a secret society, within which he and his friends and his students will swap ideas about how to change the world in a way that was coherent with his enlightened values.
2. It began as a small project.
In fact, there were only five people at the organisation's first meeting. And you might well think, Well, isn't this just basically a reading club? But Weishaupt is very clear. There is some kind of Messianic complex within him, and he really does want to cause a revolution in the way that the world operates.
3. They really did recruit famous names.
The Illuminati reached its high point in the early 1780s. At this time there was a crisis in Freemasonry in Germany, and so many educated, influential intellectuals began to look for other venues for an intellectual society. It's absolutely true that Wolfgang Goethe in Weimar was a member of the Illuminati. There is strong but perhaps circumstantial evidence that both Friedrich Schiller and Mozart were members as well. That does not mean that they were plotting to overthrow all worldly governments and to destroy religion. It does mean, however, that they saw in the Illuminati the kinds of enlightened, rational ideas that were so appealing to them and to men of their ilk.
4. They used Freemason lodges as meeting places.
They were a means of meeting a pool of candidates who would appear to be amenable to their ideas. They were also a means of infiltrating different societies or different governments. So for example, if you join a Freemasons lodge in Bavaria, that lodge will have a connection to one in the Rhineland, and it will have connections to a lodge in Prussia. So it's by these means that Illuminati ideas begin to spread throughout Germany.
5. There were no women members.
But perversely, whenever the conspiracy theory takes off, one of the accusations which is leveled at the Illuminati is that they were creating ‘Illuminata’, and that it was the seduction of the supposedly weaker sex that was allowing them to infiltrate world governments through the corruption of the wives, mothers and sisters of the powerful men.
6. By 1780, the Illuminati had at least 1,500 members.
However, that’s when things began to fall apart for the society. In Munich – probably the most important center for Illuminati activity – they began to get “too confident”. They're talking a little bit too openly about what they're doing and what their plans are. The Duchy of Bavaria and the Bavarian State Government are intensely conservative and intensely Catholic, and they begin to worry about this secret society. The Duke of Bavaria then issues a series of edicts in 1785 and 1786 and the house of one of the senior Illuminatus was raided. They found documents which they were keeping on hand the whole time, and everything was exposed. Members started to leave the society, and by 1786, the first iteration of the Illuminati was more or less finished.
7. It was believed the Illuminati were behind the French Revolution.
It was perhaps the world’s first conspiracy theory, and was fomented by Abbé Augustin Barruel, a staunchly conservative French priest and a respected man of letters. In 1797, Barruel wrote a four part memoir of the history of Jacobinism, within which he attributed the downfall of the French Ancien régime and the carnage of the last eight years to the Illuminati. At the very same time, John Robison – a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment – wrote something very similar, albeit for different reasons. Robison is trying to defend Freemasonry from the slur of being associated with the French revolution because he's a Freemason himself. Barruel is just attacking everything that the revolution stands for. So in Britain, in 1797 and 1798, these two books allege the same thing: that the Illuminati were the conspiracy behind the French Revolution.
8. The conspiracy theory grew during the Russian Revolution in the early 20th century.
While the conspiracy theory has partly survived due to its links to the mythology of the founding fathers in America, it was events in Russia that led to the Illuminati being the “monster” theory it became. Like the French Revolution, this is an equally traumatic, dramatic event. The Russian monarchy and the Russian Empire is replaced with its polar opposite, a Bolshevik atheist government. We then have people on both sides of the Atlantic in the Anglophone world attempting to explain this revolution by reference to forces which they apparently can't see or understand. And this is the really troubling moment, because when people like Nesta Webster, a columnist for British newspapers in London in the late 1910s and 20s, tries to explain this new revolution, she melds together the Illuminati conspiracy theory with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And this is where we get the birth of the antisemitic Illuminati conspiracy theory.