TinWiki: Illuminati

Illuminati Pyramid & All Seeing Eye of the U.S. dollar bill. The symbol represents one of the most impressive Masonic accomplishments, the completion of the Egyptian pyramids, an accomplishment highly revered by the Fraternal Order of Freemasons and their Illuminati.

The Illuminati is a secret society believed to be a group of immensely rich and powerful people manipulating world politics in hidden and conspiratorial ways. They are possibly the inner-most circle of the Freemasons, and the famous Yale fraternity, Skull and Bones. The name, which means the "enlightened ones", points to the mysterious aspects of this elite group of people who consider themselves enlightened by divine right.

The Illuminati is often mentioned in the same sentence as the New World Order. The saying, "Novus Ordo Seclorum" in Latin means "New Order of the Ages", coming from the Latin "Saeculorum", or "Age".

Introduction

The original Illuminati were called the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria (AISB). The organization was started by former Jesuit, Adam Weishaupt, Professor of Canon Law at the University of Ingolstadt on May 1st, 1776. Eventually the organization was exposed, and the Church and Political Authorities of the time outlawed it, along with other secret societies. The documents and papers of the organization were recovered and publicized. Church authorities published anti-Illuminati tracts, claiming that the Illuminati sought to "Destroy all Nations and all Religions". However, the only statement ever released by the Illuminati states that they intend to destroy the Catholic Church, primarily due to the Gnosticism and Essene practices of the Illuminati.

The inspiration for the name "Illuminati" comes from the first Christian outlook on Jesus. Jesus' name, given to him by the Romans, was "Lucifer", or "the bringer of light". This "light" was supposed to be the teaching of Jesus to his disciples and to the Essene tribes of Israel. His first primary symbol, before the cross, was the inverted pentagram, a five-pointed star turned upside down, a common symbol within Illuminati practice.

Pre-Weishaupt forerunners

"Illuminati" was a designation in use from the fifteenth century denoting individuals of differing beliefs, the main division being between those who thought the light that illuminated them came from a higher source and those who thought it was a clarification of the human spirit and intellect. There is a 1498 Spanish reference to the "aluminados" (later the term "allumbrados" became more popular), and these movements can be traced to a Gnostic origin. The Gnostics believed that the point of religion lay in knowing (gnosis) of the mind of God through meditation. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, was brought before an Ecclesiastical Commission in Salamanca, Spain, on a charge of sympathy with the Allumbrados, but escaped with a caution. (In view of the later antipathy between the Masons and the Catholic Church, and the Illuminati/Masonic connection, this might be seen as rather ironic.) Others faced severe penalties. For the next century the Spanish Inquisition made victims of many of the Allumbrados.

The philosophies of these early heretics spread to France around the same time, spawning several societies of the "Illumines".

A parallel development was that of the Rosicrucians. According to their own account, Christian Rosenkreuz founded the order in the early fifteenth century, but later scholars believe that this was a myth created in the early seventeenth century. They shared some of the gnostic beliefs of the Allumbrados but these were fleshed out with more overtly occult and alchemical symbolism and practices.

Immediately prior to the founding of the AISB, an Illuminist movement founded by Martinez Pasqualis was founded in France, calling itself the Martinists: and shortly thereafter Russian imitators founded a similarly-named organization.

None of the foregoing movements - with the possible exception of the Rosicrucians - have exercised the imagination of the conspiracy theorists as much as Weishaupt's Order.

Weishaupt's Illuminati

The organization was originally un-affiliated with Freemasonry, though it did have many Masons within it. This changed with the introduction of Von Knigge into the Order. He re-worked Weishaupt's original Rites for initiation and advancement and the degree system, drawing upon Masonry for inspiration. The Illuminati in general had 7 Degrees. One degree was called Minerval.

The members of the Illuminati communicated with each other using secret code names. Some members were called 'Cato', others 'Spartacus'. This system helped keep the organization's structure secret even after the seizure of its documents.

The movement attracted literary figures, of whom the best known today is Goethe (author of Faust, the original drama of the Mephistophelean pact) and several aristocrats, including the reigning dukes of Gotha and Weimar. Only nine years after its official birth, the society was banned by an edict of the Bavarian government, for allegedly plotting the overthrow of all the kings of Europe, plus the Pope. This is the official end of the story: everything that follows is a matter of controversy, to put it mildly. To quote Robert Anton Wilson's 'Cosmic Trigger':

"It has been claimed that Dr. Weishaupt was an atheist, a Cabalistic magician, a rationalist, a mystic; a democrat, a socialist, an anarchist, a fascist; a Machiavellian amoralist, an alchemist, a totalitarian and an "enthusiastic philanthropist." (The last was the verdict of Thomas Jefferson, by the way.) The Illuminati have also been credited with managing the French and American revolutions behind the scenes, taking over the world, being the brains behind Communism, continuing underground up to the 1970s, secretly worshipping the Devil, and mopery with intent to gawk. Some claim that Weishaupt didn't even invent the Illuminati, but only revived it. The Order of Illuminati has been traced back to the Knights Templar, to the Greek and Gnostic initiatory cults, to Egypt, even to Atlantis. The one safe generalization one can make is that Weishaupt's intent to maintain secrecy has worked; no two students of Illuminology have ever agreed totally about what the "inner secret" or purpose of the Order actually was (or is . . .). There is endless room for spooky speculation, and for pedantic paranoia, once one really gets into the literature of the subject; and there has been a wave of sensational "ex-poses" of the Illuminati every generation since 1776."

According to the "mainstream theory", the Illuminati ended with the final arrests and flight of its last members, including Weishaupt himself who fled to the court of the German Kaiser for protection.

Subsequent developments

Not long after this, the French Revolution occurred. It was immediately alleged that the entire revolution was an operation of the Illuminati, who had not been destroyed and had merely gone underground. It was also alleged that they had infiltrated Freemasonry, 'illuminizing' its lodges and membership. Because the French Revolution was so radical and liberal and anti-authority, it was obvious to many people at the time that it was indeed the work of the similarly liberal, radical, secular Illuminati.

Not long after the French Revolution, there were many revolutions throughout Europe that saw the end of the rule of tyrannical Monarchs and the authoritative Church and Papacy. In Italy it was called the Risorgimento. Prior to that it was called the American Revolution. Republican movements started in Ireland against the British Crown. The revolutionary army of France invaded what was then the German States and knocked down the old regimes all across Europe. Each time various secret societies were seen to be agitating for the revolution. In Italy there were the Adelphi and Carbonari, whereas in America there was the Sons of Liberty. All this led to the idea that, not only had the Illuminati gone underground to direct these revolutions from the shadows, but that they had created a system of radical and inter-connected secret societies which were merely 'secret fronts' from behind which they could work for the old alleged goal, to "Destroy all Nations and Religion". Britain had undergone its own revolution over a hundred years earlier, leaving (after the so-called "Glorious Revolution", an odd name if ever there was one for the restoration of the monarchy) a much weakened Crown and a marginally strengthened parliamentary democracy. This may have vitiated the desire for the kind of revolution Illuminism may have tried to foment, but it is not coincidental that this period of British history, which saw the rise of the scientific method over Church doctrine as the dominant paradigm for explaining the world, is known as "The Enlightenment".

Most recently, many have proposed that the Bavarian Illuminati themselves were a front for the real Illuminati Order, that they went through the play acting of being destroyed in order to quell any suspicion about their real activities. In this concept, it is usually believed that The Illuminati are an ancient organization that extends sometimes right down into prehistory, that started civilization and directed its course as part of a long plot to take over the world and enslave mankind. It is also thought that the Illuminati are the ones behind the NWO. The contradictions between this idea of enslavement of mankind and the original allegations of fomenting revolution across the world have not been successfully resolved.

Researchers/theorists

Nesta Webster

Perhaps the most influential theorist of the role of the Illuminati in world history was Nesta Webster, whose belief that she was the reincarnation of the Comptesse de Saban (who suffered during the French Revolution) and whose ultra-right views (she became a member of the British Fascists in the late 1920s) informed her scholarship. In her first book, a study of the French Revolution, she claimed that the French peasantry had had little to do with it, but rather it was inspired by a group of "Illuminised Freemasons". Although Una Birch had proposed the same idea in her "Secret Societies and The French Revolution" (which Webster never acknowledged) it was Webster's books that became the source material for the flurry of claims and counter-claims that followed. Webster's books were rediscovered by the John Birch Society and one suspects that they would have ignored the scholarship of their namesake due to her pro-Masonic stance. At any rate, Webster followed in the footsteps, not only of Una Birch, but of Abbe Barruel and John Robison, both of whom published books alleging Illuminist conspiracies in 1798.

Robert Anton Wilson

In 1975, the 'Illuminatus!' trilogy was published. Co-authored by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, it brought the Illuminati a little closer to mainstream culture, and revealed some interesting facts or allegations (the two, at this distance, are hard to distinguish) about its founder, notably that Weishaupt was reputed to be a close doppelganger of George Washington and in fact killed him and took his place. (How he got round the problems of language and accent is somewhat glossed over). Wilson returned to the subject in subsequent books and tried to tease out the various occult strands in Illuminist philosophy, and his book "Everything is Under Control" is a mini-encyclopedia of conspiracy theories.

David Icke

Main article: David Icke
In his array of books on the threat posed to humanity by the Illuminati, David Icke also uses the terms "Elite" and "Babylonian Brotherhood" interchangeably to denote those bloodlines he believes control the world and for millennia has sought to establish a New World Order, in which humanity lives as slaves controlled by a one-world government, a one-world central bank, and a one-world army.

In the early to mid-nineties Icke wrote and lectured on the three-dimensional facet of this conspiracy. Since then his scope has widened and his theories have started to merge with those of other researchers who believe that the real source of mankind's troubles are not human at all, but the result of extra-terrestrial manipulation (cf. Alex Collier, William Bramley).

Icke has popularized the theory that the Illuminati bloodlines go back at least as far as Babylon and keep interbreeding in order to retain reptilian DNA-strains once injected into them by ETs and that which makes them into shape-shifters whose default state is not human but reptilian.

Icke has drawn antagonism from quarters such as the Anti-Defamation League for his views that a current key-vehicle for the Illuminati's implementation of its New World Order (freemasons aside) are the state of Israel - which in Icke´s view is owned and controlled by the Rothschild family and is the result of a die-hard political faction known as Zionism creating a Jewish agenda that never existed, and in the process hijacking a whole people.

Fritz Springmeier

Springmeier is a controversial figure who alleges that trauma-based mind control techniques are used by a group of Satanist families to maintain their oligarchical grip on the reins of world power. Although he asserts that this group traces their lineage back through Weishaupt and beyond, his scholarship on this matter is flimsy to say the least. According to Springmeier:

"The top 13 bloodlines are the Astors, Bundy, Collins, Dupont, Freeman, Kennedy, Leigh, Onassis, Rockefellers, Rothschild, Russell ... then there is a 13th bloodline which is the Merovingian bloodline. I just simple call it the 13th and then there is the Van Dine Illuminati bloodline. The 13th bloodline, the Merovingian, is extremely important. It includes the royal families of Europe."

Some other families are said to be within the major 13 families, or to be strongly connected to the the Illuminati, such as:

Aldrich, Bakers, Carnegie, Cecil, Disney, Dorrance, Drexel, Duke, Forbes, Ford, Harriman, Hambro, McDonald, Mellon, Morgan, Oppenheimer, Payseur, Piso, Schiff, Stillman, Remington, Reynolds, Tuke, Warburg, Whitney, Windsor, Winthrop, Vanderbilt.

Current orders

A number of groups currently claim to be the Illuminati, and state that they have decided to reveal themselves to the world at this time because it is in their interests. They are:

• Illuminati
  
• Bavarian Illuminati
  
• The Illuminati Order - Liberal-Political Group
  
• Orden Illuminati - Super Masonic Organization of Gabriel Lopez de Rojas
  
• Another Illuminati Order
  
• Tallahasee Illuminati
  
• The Order of Illuminati New generation.
  

 

External links

Illuminati Archives: Occult Media Athenaeum
Public Eye's Illuminati Essay
Una Birch's Secret Societies and the French Revolution
Fritz Springmeier Interview
Robert Anton Wilson homepage
Illuminati Conspiracy Archive
The 13 Illuminati Satanic Bloodlines
Bavarian Illuminati Primer
Illuminati News
Who Are The Illuminati? - By Richard Stone, truthseeker.co.uk/Red Ice Creations
Illuminati Confessions by Leo Zagami, Leo Lyon Zagami, Leo Young
gaiaguys.net
Inner World of the Occult - Jordan Maxwell Exposes The Illuminati (Jan 2002 at Granada Forum in CA) - Google Video, 3 hr 0 min 10 sec - Sep 12, 2006
The French Connection
YouTube - Occult Secrets of Jay Z, Kanye & Nas - Added: July 26, 2007
YouTube - Illuminati and N.W.O in music - Added： 2008, March 10
Project Camelot - 30 minutes phone conversation with Leo Zagami - mp3, 6 MB
The Swedish, Norwegian and Scandinavian Branches of the Illuminati - by Leo Zagami, Dec 12, 2006

Relevant discussion threads on AboveTopSecret.com

VIDEO: Ex-Illuminati Leo Zagami on Jesuits, Zionists & Masons
Illuminati Symbol Origins
Illuminati Argument?
Freedom tower - Illuminati
Isn't there anything we can do to stop the Illuminati?
Illuminati rituals during Republican and Democratic conventions
Symbolism and the illuminati
Learning about Illuminati
Illuminati Defector "Tells All"
Ted Gunderson former FBI cheif special agent talks about Illuminati (video)