1. Where Illuminati Theory Came From
Almost every Illuminati theory is made up of a few main pieces, like the different parts of an urban legend. The pieces can be put together in different combinations, or one piece can be emphasized more than another. But they always combine to tell more or less the same story. You may have heard these different pieces mentioned: the Illuminati, the Masons, Satanists, the Bilderbergs or the bankers. Each of these pieces of Illuminati theory arose at different times in history. In most cases, they were developed by rich and powerful people, who were being kicked out of power by mass movements.
First piece: The Bavarian Illuminati…
Adam Weishaupt, 1748-1830
The first piece of Illuminati theory is based on a real group called the “Order of Illuminists”. The Illuminists were founded in May 1776 in Bavaria, part of present-day Germany (but Germany didn’t exist yet at the time). The leader of the Illuminists, a Bavarian professor of religious law named Adam Weishaupt, wanted to free the world “from all established religious and political authority”. His Order aimed to get rid of the kings and the churches that had ruled Europe since the Middle Ages, and make room for new forms of commerce, science, and democratic government that were struggling to emerge at the time. The Illuminists modeled themselves partly on the Jesuits, an order of Catholic priests, and partly on the Freemasons. They infiltrated Masonic lodges in order to gain influence in society, and pursue their goals.
To understand any group or movement, you have to understand the context it emerged from. The time period when the Illuminists appeared was called “The Enlightenment”. It was a century of ongoing radical change in Europe, stretching from the 1600s to the late 1700s. During the Enlightenment, the old social system that people had lived in for centuries, dominated by kings and priests on top with peasants at the bottom, began to break down. A class of rich merchants arose in Europe, trading with far-flung parts of the globe. New technologies developed, and with them new kinds of skilled workers. These new classes started to wield more power than the kings and queens who were supposed to be on top according to law and tradition. The American Revolution demonstrated the power of these classes to the whole world, when they broke free from the British crown.
As the social world began to change, people began to think differently. Before the Enlightenment, most people believed the physical world, and the social order, were determined by God’s divine law. As the Enlightenment set in, experimenters like Isaac Newton, and philosophers like Hobbes and Rousseau, developed modern science and politics. People started to believe the physical world was shaped by natural laws—like the law of gravity—that could be discovered by investigation. They described how governments could be organized without kings, through a social contract among “citizens”.
Soon hundreds of small groups of thinkers and activists caught the spirit of the Enlightenment. The Order of Illuminists was just one such group, alongside others like the Rosicrucians and the Italian Carbonari. During the 1780s the Illuminists grew to about 2,500 members in central Europe. But they weren’t very successful at overturning the medieval order, and soon began facing repression from authorities. They disbanded around 1787. Like so many other groups of its kind, the Illuminists failed to bring about revolutionary changes. But revolutionary change happened without them.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION LASTED FROM 1787 to 1799
In the decade after the collapse of the Order of Illuminists, massive protests rocked France, culminating in the French Revolution. Rebellions by angry peasants and urban workers overturned the feudal order that had existed for centuries, and sent shockwaves across Europe. Slaves in the French colony of Haiti launched their own revolution, demanding the same freedoms French citizens were winning on the streets of Paris. In France the aristocrats were kicked out of their palaces, and systematically killed so that no king could ever claim the throne again. Churches were burned to the ground, and Catholic priests driven from positions of power. A parliamentary system was established with elections, representatives, and a legislature. It was the first time anything like it had happened in history.
Not everyone celebrated the changes sweeping through Europe, however. People whose social status depended on the old aristocracy and the church tended to resist the changes. Some of them wrote books, and this is how the first Illuminati conspiracy theories were created. In 1798, an English scientist and inventor named John Robinson wrote Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and Reading Societies. In 1803, Jesuit priest Abbe Agustin Barruel wrote Memoirs, Illustrating the History of Jacobinism. Both authors disliked the French Revolution, and so they blamed it on a small group of conspirators: the “Illuminati”.
Robinson and Barruel argued that the Order of Illuminists didn’t really disband in 1787, but only went underground. They claimed this “Illuminati” had secretly plotted and carried out the French Revolution, and were still hiding in Masonic lodges, planning to overthrow governments in Europe and America. Robinson and Barruel disliked revolution, and they didn’t think it was possible for millions of people to mobilize together and change the conditions of their lives. To them, ordinary people weren’t organized or smart enough to pull it off. They needed to be guided like sheep by an elite group. In this way, Robinson and Barruel’s original Illuminati theory was a kind of conservative myth, used to make sense of a social reality its authors found confusing and scary. Today’s Illuminati theory follows the same pattern. Even poor people who draw on Illuminati theory, who might otherwise sympathize with protest movements, often view movements as secret ploys by the Illuminati to cause trouble.
…And the Freemasons
Robinson and Barruel’s original Illuminati theory, and Illuminati theory today, talks a lot about the Masons. The original Order of Illuminists established itself in Freemasonry groups, called “lodges”. But Freemasonry had emerged a few hundred years earlier. Originally, Freemasonry was just what it sounds like: a group of people who worked with masonry and stone to build structures. Starting in the 1300s, skilled workers, such as masons, weavers, and blacksmiths, began to organize in groups called “guilds.” Guilds received permission to carry out their trade in a given town, and policed who could do their line of work. They were highly exclusive, and invented rituals and symbolism to distinguish themselves from everybody else.
As capitalism developed, the guilds slowly broke down. New technologies made their outdated tools and skills irrelevant, and most disappeared. But the Masonic lodges were different. In the 1700s Masonic lodges began recruiting rich or influential people, in order to maintain their funds and high social status. They soon lost their association with masonry work, and turned into a fancy social club.
Masonic lodges provided a venue for radical organizing as the Enlightenment set in. The emerging class of rich merchants and intellectuals gathered in Masonic lodges, discussed the changes taking place in society, and planned activist actions. Many famous revolutionaries developed their radical ideas while they were Freemasons. Because of this association with Enlightenment radicalism, people who opposed revolution tended to view Freemasons as the enemy. This is a common pattern: the elite always think revolutions are planned and directed by a small group of enlightened people, instead of by masses of people themselves.
In reality, Masonic lodges are elaborate social clubs for people who want to feel elite. In some places, Masonic lodges have provided a place for intellectuals to discuss how to change society, but they’re usually pretty boring. If you go into a Masonic temple today, you’ll see groups of small business owners talking about how to plant trees on Main Street, not a secret group plotting to rule the world. Nevertheless, their association with the original Bavarian Order of Illuminists has meant they’re always included in Illuminati theory.
The Bavarian Illuminati, and its association with Freemasonry, is the first piece of the Illuminati theory we hear today. But there are two other important pieces to most Illuminati theories: anti-Semitism and the antichrist.
The Second Piece: Anti-Semitism
Distrust, prejudice, and hatred toward Jews arose in Europe hundreds of years ago. Europe was ruled by kingdoms allied with the Catholic Church after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Jews were banned from playing a major role in the economy or gaining political power. Over time, different Jewish communities found ways to survive at the edges of society, doing things that mainstream society looked down upon, like lending money. Soon Jews as a whole became associated with this profession. At first this profession wasn’t very powerful. But as capitalism developed, money-lending—credit—became more important.
FACTORY WORK IN THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION WAS
EXHAUSTING AND UNSAFE, LIKE IN MANY FACTORIES
AROUND THE WORLD TODAY
As capitalism developed, millions of people were driven of the land, and forced to work for poverty wages in the new factories of industrial Europe. Because Jews were already identified with money and credit, different groups began to view Jews as a symbol of capitalism itself. Many European workers believed Jews used their role as financiers to gain power and exploit people. Jews also provided a convenient scapegoat for the petit-bourgeoisie: small business owners trying to become big-time factory owners. This class resented the debts they had to take out in order to expand their businesses. They viewed financiers as an obstacle to “fair” competition. In the early 20th century, Jewish communities regularly suffered attacks by mobs of workers and petit-bourgeois business owners. Especially in Eastern Europe and Russia, “pogroms” (lynch mobs against Jewish neighborhoods) were a common occurrence.
Anti-Semitism united poor workers with small business owners, despite their opposed interests. The poor workers were angry about their treatment under capitalism, but saw Jews as a bigger enemy than their exploiting factory bosses. The small business owners worked to become the big-time exploiters of the poor workers, and felt Jews stood in the way of their goals. These two classes were fundamentally opposed to each other, but temporarily joined together in a populist movement, because of their mutual, misguided anti-Semitism. Populist movements join poor people with the petit-bourgeoisie, against imagined elite enemies. They speak in the name of the “common man,” but they’re guided by middle class elements, and screw over poor and working participants in the end. Contemporary examples of populism include the Tea Party, some parts of Occupy Wall Street, and the Nation of Islam. Illuminati theories are often populist in character. Many populist theories draw on anti-Semitism to identify an evil elite that runs the world.
Many Illuminati theories make use of a document from the early 1900s called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Protocols claimed to be a secret document written by Jews, about their plans to take over the world. In fact, they were written sometime between 1897 and 1903, most likely by members of the Russian secret police. At the time, Russian nationalists were trying to prevent the breakout of a Russian Revolution against the Emperor of Russia, called the Tsar. Most nationalists were strongly anti-Semitic. They viewed the entire mass movement to overthrow the Tsar as a Jewish conspiracy. The Protocols were written to help fuel the movement against Jews, in order (they thought) to prevent the revolution.
Most of the Protocols was crudely copied from two other books: Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, written by Maurice Joly in 1864, and Biarritz, a German novel written in 1868 by Hermann Goedsche. Despite being exposed as a fake, the document became widely read in Russia and Europe, and eventually the U.S. too. Because of this, Illuminati theories regularly make mention of Jewish banking groups like the Rothschilds and the Bilderbergs, and portray Jews as a secret group intent on world domination. This is the second major piece of the Illuminati theory. The third is the antichrist.
The Third Piece: The Antichrist
Many Illuminati theorists also talk about the “end of days” and the “mark of the beast”. These terms come from a religious movement called Protestant Millenarianism, which arose in the mid 1800s. Millenarian movements believe the end of the world is coming, and try to get ready for it. Millenarians in the 1800s developed a complex timeline describing the Second Coming of Christ, with a sequence of important signs. One of the signs was the coming of the “antichrist.” In the Bible, the “antichrist” is sometimes described as a single person, and sometimes as many individuals or groups. The “antichrist” is supposed to gain dictatorial power over the world just before Christ’s return. Today, many U.S. evangelical Christians are constantly looking for signs that the antichrist is appearing.
GERALD WINROD, 1900-1957
In the early 20th century, World War One, the Great Depression, the rise of Fascism, and World War Two, gave Evangelicals many signs that the end was drawing near. Based on their interpretation of the Bible, evangelicals looked for signs of growing government power, and individuals with cult-like status that might be the antichrist. In the 1920s, U.S. evangelical leader Gerald Winrod claimed that Mussolini, the Italian Fascist leader, was actually the antichrist. He said the League of Nations was a sign of his growing world power. “End of days” predictions continued for years afterward. In the 1950s, some evangelicals predicted that a new invention called the “computer” was actually the antichrist. In the 1970s, others argued that the microchip or laser barcodes were the “mark of the beast,” destined to brand individuals in the antichrist’s name. During Obama’s election, many people thought he was the antichrist.
The figure of the antichrist and the “end of days” has been a main piece of many Illuminati theories since the 1920s. The story works like a game of bingo: believers have a list of signs of the end of the world, and they sit around waiting for them to appear. Every popular political figure, like Obama, can be seen as the antichrist. Every big political organization, like the U.N, can be seen as his growing power. Every development in information technology, like implanted microchips, can be seen as a “mark of the beast.” Theories like these don’t accurately describe reality. Instead, they get people to find evidence for a theory they already want to believe.
The Three Pieces Combined = Illuminati Theory As We Know It
All the pieces we’ve talked about so far were combined in the 1920s, a time of great unrest. Before and after World War I, there were huge working class rebellions against capitalism. Massive workers’ movements with millions of members rocked Germany, Italy, France, England, and even the U.S. Workers finally toppled the Tsar in the Russian Revolution of 1917, and they tried to establish a communist society. To many people, it seemed like a wave of socialist revolution would overturn capitalism, just as capitalism had overturned feudalism a century before.
MILITANT GERMAN WORKERS ATTEMPT A REVOLUTION
IN BERLIN, JANUARY 1919
Just like before, those who depended on the dominant order opposed the revolutionary movement. They felt the need to explain the growing unrest, which they disliked and couldn’t understand. Just like the kings and queens in the French Revolution who couldn’t explain the uprisings against them, the modern capitalists turned to Illuminati theories. They didn’t think workers were smart enough to actually change the world. In 1926, Nesta Webster, an English aristocrat, published Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, The Need for Fascism in Great Britain. Lady Queenborough (also known as Edith Starr Miller), the daughter of a U.S. industrial capitalist, published Occult Theocrasy in 1933. Both writers argued that the revolutionary fervor sweeping the globe was caused by a secret conspiracy. Both combined the old Illuminati theory with new elements.
Webster and Queenborough hyped up the Illuminati more than before: now the Illuminati were said to be descendants of the ancient Knights Templar, and every secret society that ever existed was supposedly an Illuminati front group. They also linked Jewish financiers to the Illuminati conspiracy. The Illuminati, they said, were paid by a secret group of Jewish bankers in their quest for world domination. Webster and Queenborough’s conspiracy theories were preached in the U.S. by Gerald Winrod—the same Winrod described above, who was on the lookout for the antichrist. Winrod wrote a pamphlet in 1935 called Adam Weishaupt, a Human Devil, which drew on Webster and Queenborough’s work. He argued that communism itself was a Jewish conspiracy, and that the Illuminati conspiracy heralded the coming of the antichrist.
Webster, Queenborough and Winrod brought together the three pieces of Illuminati theory under one big umbrella. Their writings established the main core common to the Illuminati theories we hear today: the Illuminati are a secret society, financed by a Jewish banking syndicate, which goes way back to ancient religious societies, and which aims to rule the world. In some cases, the Illuminati are portrayed as followers of Satan or the antichrist, aiming to bring about his rule on earth. Almost every Illuminati theory today builds off this core story.
Originally, Illuminati theories were used by elites to try to explain and stop movements. But if these theories were first developed by elites and other conservative forces, how did they end up being used by poor and oppressed people in the hood?
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