The Illuminati: From Bavarian Club to Global Myth

The Story

On 1 May 1776, Adam Weishaupt, a professor of law at the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, founded the Order of the Illuminati. According to the BBC, it was formed to oppose religious influence on society and the abuse of power by the state. It was inspired by the Freemasons and French Enlightenment philosophers. National Geographic says five men met in a forest near Ingolstadt to found it.

Ingolstadt's Jesuit-controlled university was strictly monitored, so the group worked in secret. It grew quickly. National Geographic says it had 2,000 to 3,000 members by the end of 1784, including noblemen, politicians, doctors, lawyers and writers such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The real Illuminati was banned within a decade of its founding. The legend has lasted 250 years.

That was also the year the Bavarian state learned of it. In June 1784 the Duke-Elector of Bavaria banned all societies not authorized by law. In March 1785 a second edict expressly banned the Illuminati. Police arrested members and seized papers, which National Geographic says revealed details of the order's rituals. An edict in August 1787 imposed the death penalty for membership. Weishaupt lost his post and was banished, and the state considered the order dismantled.

The legend began after that. JSTOR Daily notes that in 1797 the natural philosopher John Robison and the ex-Jesuit Abbé Augustin Barruel both published accounts blaming the Illuminati for the French Revolution. They claimed its members had infiltrated Masonic lodges as part of a global plan to subvert church and state.

Since then the Illuminati has been blamed for much else. The BBC lists the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the 11 September 2001 attacks. It has also featured in fiction such as Dan Brown's 'Angels & Demons.' Dr Michael Wood of the University of Winchester, who studies the psychology of conspiracy theories, told the BBC it is a 'superconspiracy,' one that controls smaller conspiracies. He added that people often talk about it 'in a joking or self-aware kind of way.'

The original Illuminati was real, and it really did operate in secret. But no credible evidence has been offered that it survived its suppression, or that any group by that name controls world events today.