Mr. Kennedy:
there are no members of the Illuminati, since that organisation broke up in the 18th century.

I had asked this in a thread that was closed, so i figure I might benefit from asking again where there is the possibility of a response.

I have allways thought of the Illuminati as a non-existant 'bogeyman' sort of 'secret society'. Needless to say I was especially surprised to see a mason, and apparently a well schooled one, make the above remark.

What is the evidence for the actual existence of this group? I have figured that, if they had ever existed, that the 'illuminati' bit is supposed to mean something like 'the enlightened ones', and that they might in fact be associated with the scientific 'Age of Enlightenment', when classical knowlege was regained and reformulated in terms of 'modern' scientific philosophy. Am I correct in thinking this? Doing a 'google' on illuminati I fear would be quite useless, sort of like expected to get G.Bush the elder's speech on 'a new world order' by googling around for the 'NWO' (iow, likely to turn up lots of 'hooey', as one forum member has said).

Is there any information to the history of the actual Illuminati that anyone here can point to? Not rumours or rumours of rumours (i'm well aware of that sort of stuff), but anything like historical evidence?