The Illuminati

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As noted above, the Illuminati were a secret society formed in Bavaria in the 18th century, to promote the ideals of the Enlightenment. One man, rejected for membership, went on to become ruler of Bavaria, and outlawed secret societies. The Illuminati believed this meant the whole Enlightenment experiment was a failure, disbanded, and gave the idea up entirely.

In the later 1960s, author Robert Anton Wilson was writing a trilogy of novels about a network of secret societies, operating behind the scenes to run the world. Most "secret society" stories of the era used the Freemasons; Wilson wanted to be original, so he reached back into history and resurrected the name of the Illuminati for his books, the Illuminatus! Trilogy (yes, the exclamation point is part of the title). The trilogy formed the basis for a play, Illuminatus!, and for a card game, Illuminati!. Recently, Steve Jackson Games, no stranger to conspiracy theories since the Secret Service raided their computers back in the '80s because someone mistook GURPS Cyberpunk for some sort of instruction manual, released the latest iteration of the game, Illuminati! New World Order (INWO to its fans).

Of course, the late Sixties were a little low on comprehension of irony, possibly as a side effect of drug use, so a fair number of people seem to have emerged from that era with a conviction that the modern Illuminati were real...

ah i now feel much more knowledgeable. i love a good conspiracy theory:)

I won't go so far as to say that Illuminatus! is a great book (yeah, technically it's a trilogy, but it's usually a one book edition) but it's all right for a laff and definitely worth reading, because it gets referenced very many times in other pop fiction. Popularised Fnords, 23, Discordianism and lots of other stuff.

equating the bavarian illuminati or the illuminatus books with the (hypothetical) NWO illuminati of internet fame seems to me a bit like saying all vacumn cleaners are hoovers iyswim. Sure, popular fiction* has drawn from secret societies and this probably led to the 'illuminati' label being adopted by conspiracy researchers, but you have to give something a name in order to talk about it. illuminati is a snappy, enigmatic sounding title, it would have served perfectly well as an umbrella term (before the loon, tin foil connotations)

Take 'bavarian illuminati' where the term originates from. Apparently their stated aim was to spread the enlghtenment. Maybe so, but look at the modern world; an imperialist war isnt going to be called 'operation: kill babies, steal resources' but something like 'operation freedom', in the UK the plan to wrench benefits & support from disabled people is called iirc 'better access for all'. Im sure the same techniques were used in previous eras. Orwell didnt invent doublespeak, he just did a good job of setting it out.

So i dont think the illimantus=illuminati thing is grounds when taken alone to discard the whole notion, not if a lot of detail has been written about these 13 bloodlines, particularly regarding geneology etc. I havent researched it myself (not likely to either). Im just saying that i would have to, before drawing any definate conclusions.

*similar to reptilian theory (the notion that a race of entities existing outside the range of normal human perception which possess humans with certain (royal) DNA sequences) - because there was a popular TV show in the 80s that featured reptilian humanoids appearing in human form, people just assume thats where the whole thing must have started, picking up metaphysical addendums along the way from other areas to increase its plausability. But the same themes are echoed in ancient folklore.

Psych, Illuminati New World Order is a card game. This is a link.

While you're there, you might want to check out some of SJGames' other offerings - I'm a big fan of Munchkin, personally.

The illuminati are just a bunch of rich people who want power. Thats all, we could tear down their empire easily.