Who Are the Illuminati Really?

When I was little, I would sometimes watch History Channel documentaries with my parents. These documentaries were often full of bizarre conspiracy theories about the Freemasons and the Illuminati. The History Channel claimed that these organizations were secretly controlling the world to bring about a totalitarian one-world government that they called “the New World Order.”

I think that most people who have a serious interest in history realize that you can’t trust anything you hear on the History Channel. I personally think that a more accurate name for it would be “the Conspiracy Channel,” since they talk a lot more about conspiracy theories than about actual history. Nonetheless, I think it is worthwhile to examine some of the ideas that are promoted on this channel and determine how much truth behind them there really is.

Believe it or not, the Illuminati was once a real organization and its history is surprisingly well-documented. In this article, I want to examine who the Illuminati were, what their goals were, what evidence there is for their alleged continued existence, and why so many people are afraid of them.

Adam Weishaupt: the founder of the original Bavarian Illuminati

In 1768, the twenty-year-old Adam Weishaupt graduated from University of Ingolstadt, a university in Bavaria that was largely run by Jesuits, with a doctorate of law. Weishaupt remained at the university as a tutor and catechist for four years until, finally, in 1772, at the age of only twenty-four, he became a professor of law.

In 1773, Pope Clement XIV ordered the formal suppression of the Society of Jesus. Subsequently, Weishaupt was appointed as a professor of canon law and practical philosophy—a position that had been held only by Jesuits for the past ninety years. Despite their order having been formally suppressed, the Jesuits retained immense power at the university and many of them were deeply offended by the fact that Weishaupt, a young man who was not a member of the clergy, had been given such a prestigious position.

Two years later, in 1775, Weishaupt, at the young age of twenty-seven, was promoted to the position of dean. This only brought him into even greater conflict with the Jesuit faculty of the university. The Jesuits were aware of Weishaupt’s liberal social and political views. They complained that he was a dangerous radical and protested the university paying his salary. Weishaupt, in turn, became increasingly anti-clerical. He sent secret reports to the director of the university that portrayed the university’s clerical faculty negatively.

ABOVE: Portrait of Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the original Bavarian Illuminati

The founding of the Illuminati

Weishaupt’s astoundingly swift ascension through the university hierarchy gave him a radically inflated sense of self-importance and he came to see himself as destined for a greater purpose in service of all humanity. On 1 May 1776, he founded a secret society with four of his law students.

Members of Weishaupt’s secret society were fiercely devoted to the ideals of the Enlightenment. Their mission was to promote knowledge, reason, secularism, and republicanism and to oppose all forms of ignorance, superstition, religious influence in politics and education, and monarchy.

To protect their identities, members of this secret society were given secret code names, which were mostly drawn from classical history and mythology. Weishaupt took the code name “Spartacus,” after the Thrakian gladiator of that name who famously led a slave uprising against the Romans in 73 BC. His students Franz Anton von Massenhausen, Bauhof, Max Edler von Merz, and Andreas Sutor took the names “Ajax,” “Agathon,” “Tiberius,” and “Erasmus Rotterdamus” respectively.

Members of Weishaupt’s secret society were originally known as “Perfectibilisten,” because they believed that it was their mission to perfect the human race through the promotion of Enlightenment teachings. By April 1778, though, Weishaupt had changed the name to “Illuminaten” in German or “Illuminati” in Latin, both of which mean “Enlightened Ones.”

The Illuminati grew slowly. In the early days, non-Christians, women, monks, and members of other secret societies were forbidden from joining. The organization sought out Christian men of high social status between the ages of eighteen and thirty who were rich, eager to learn, and willing to obey orders without questioning. By the end of the summer of 1778, over two years after the organization was founded, it only had twenty-seven members in total, including members who were no longer active.

ABOVE: Illustration made by the German illustrator Hermann Vogel in 1882 portraying the death of Spartacus. “Spartacus” was Adam Weishaupt’s secret code name.

For an organization supposedly committed to promoting reason and free thought, the Illuminati was unusually tyrannical. Weishaupt insisted on having despotic power over all members of the society. He could order them to do whatever he wanted. A network of internal spies allowed him to secretly keep tabs on what other members of the Illuminati were doing. Weishaupt’s insistence on his own authority led to a great deal of infighting within the secret society.

In the early days, there were only three ranks within the organization: Novice, Minerval, and Enlightened Minerval. Weishaupt’s favorites made up a council known as the Areopagus—named after the Areios Pagos, the hill in the city of Athens that had served as the meeting place of the ancient aristocratic council.

Beginning in 1777, the Illuminati infiltrated the Bavarian Freemasons and began recruiting masters and wardens to become members of the Illuminati. In 1780, the Illuminati recruited Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwig Knigge, a diplomat and prominent Freemason from northern Germany who had extensive political connections. Knigge took the code name “Philo,” after the Jewish Middle Platonist philosopher Philo of Alexandria (lived c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD), and quickly became the Illuminati’s most effective recruiter.

At the time of Knigge’s recruitment in 1780, the Illuminati had somewhere around sixty members, but, by spring 1782, they had around three hundred members and control of several Masonic lodges. By 1784, the Illuminati reached the peak of their membership, with around 650 verifiable members. Their members included the famous German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (lived 1749 – 1832) and the philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (lived 1744 – 1803).

Though the Illuminati were always few in number, at their height, they managed to acquire a great deal of influence within Bavaria. Their center of power remained the University of Ingolstadt, where Jesuit department heads were quietly replaced with members of the Illuminati.

ABOVE: Portrait of Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwig Knigge, the Illuminati’s most successful recruiter

Illuminati symbols

In addition to code names, the Illuminati also used a variety of secret symbols, which, like their code names, were rooted in classical history and mythology.

In ancient times, the Greeks worshipped Athena, who was the patron goddess of the city of Athens and was associated with wisdom and intelligence. Both Athena and the city of Athens were closely associated with the little owl. As I discuss in this article from March 2020, the Greek deities were almost exclusively known in western Europe by their Latin names until around the middle of the twentieth century when Greek names became more commonly used. Athena’s Latin name was Minerva and it was by this name that the Illuminati were familiar with her.

The Illuminati revered Minerva, seeing her as a symbol of reason, republicanism, and freethought. Two of the original ranks of the Illuminati were named after her (i.e. the ranks of “Minerval” and “Enlighted Minerval”). The Illuminati chose the owl of Athena perched on top of an open book as their primary insignia.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of an ancient Athenian silver tetradrachm dated to between c. 480 and c. 420 BC depicting the little owl, a symbol of Athens

ABOVE: Frontispiece of the book Das Verbesserte System der Illuminaten showing the insignia of the Illuminati—the owl of Athena perched atop an opened book

Like the Freemasons, the Illuminati were deeply fascinated with Pythagoreanism. The ancient Pythagoreans had a mystical reverence for the equilateral triangle. The most important sacred symbol in ancient Pythagoreanism was the tetraktys, an equilateral triangle formed by ten dots arranged in four rows, with one dot on the top row, two dots on the second row, three dots on the third row, and four dots on the bottom row. The ancient Pythagoreans revered this symbol above all others. It is through this fascination with Pythagorean mysticism that the Illuminati became associated with triangles.

ABOVE: Image from Wikimedia Commons of the tetraktys, the most sacred symbol of ancient Pythagoreanism

The downfall of the Illuminati

For better or worse, the Illuminati began to rapidly fall apart in summer 1784. Adolph Knigge, the man who had proven such an effective recruiter for the Illuminati, grew exasperated with Weishaupt’s domineering control. He came to increasingly view Weishaupt as no different from the tyrants the Illuminati had ostensibly been founded to oppose. On 1 July, Knigge officially left the secret society.

Things only got worse for the Illuminati. Later that year, under the encouragement of the Catholic Church, Karl Theodor, the prince-elector and duke of Bavaria, issued a series of edicts banning the Illuminati and all other secret societies. Through these edicts, he implemented a harsh punishment for anyone convicted of having been involved in any such organization.

Adam Weishaupt fled Bavaria and found refuge in the city of Gotha in the dutchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Other members of the Illuminati were not so lucky. The diplomat Franz Xaver von Zwackh, who had been one of Weishaupt’s students and an extremely high-ranking member of the Illuminati, was arrested and all his personal papers were confiscated.

ABOVE: Portrait of Karl Theodor, the prince-elector and duke of Bavaria, painted in 1763 by Anna Dorothea Therbusch

Government officials were shocked and horrified when they read through von Zwackh’s personal papers. They found essays he had written defending atheism and suicide; papers containing detailed instructions on how to make poisons, counterfeit currency, invisible ink, abortifacients, and exploding safe boxes; plans to establish a secret organization for women; and—most disturbing of all—documents confirming the level of power that the Illuminati exerted over their members and the extent of the Illuminati’s ambitions.

Bavarian government officials searched the homes of other prominent Illuminati members and seized all the documents they could find. In 1787, the Bavarian government published all the Illuminati secret documents they had uncovered, revealing to the public just how secretive, cultish, and ambitious the Illuminati really were.

Meanwhile, Adam Weishaupt himself was busy publishing books of his own, mainly works defending the Illuminati and bitterly denouncing those who had opposed the secret society. These works only fueled even greater fear of the Illuminati among conservatives.

The rise of Illuminati conspiracy theories

As far as historians can tell from the surviving evidence, the crackdown on the Illuminati in Bavaria more-or-less destroyed the organization. Those who had been members of the Illuminati moved on to new and different things. Even Adam Weishaupt himself seems to have given up on the idea of using a secret society to spread his ideas. Instead, he spent his later years writing books expounding his philosophy.

Nonetheless, paranoia about the Illuminati flourished among conservatives, who refused to believe that such an evil organization could be destroyed by a simple government crackdown. It didn’t help that, in 1789, only a few years after the Illuminati’s downfall, the French Revolution began. No one could fail to notice that the Jacobins, the most radical revolutionary faction, believed in many of the same ideals that the Illuminati had espoused, namely the ideals of reason, republicanism, liberty, equality, and fraternity.

In 1797, the Scottish physicist John Robison (lived 1739 – 1805) published the book Proofs of a Conspiracy against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, in which he argued that the Illuminati had survived being banned in Bavaria by moving their operations into France, where he claimed they had infiltrated Masonic lodges and used their influence to orchestrate the French Revolution. Robison warned that the Illuminati were still a threat and that they wanted to overthrow all the monarchies of Europe and install republican governments.

Between 1797 and 1798, the French Jesuit priest Augustin Barruel published the book Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, in which he presented a very similar argument to the one posed by Robison. According to Barruel, the Illuminati had moved their operations into France, where they had orchestrated the overthrow of the Ancien Régime.

Some of my readers might at first be convinced by these theories. Consider, though, the fact that the Illuminati did not by any means have a trademark on the ideas they promoted and that, by the time of the revolution, French philosophers had been articulating these same ideas for around two centuries. It is far more likely that the French Revolution was born out of native resentment of the monarchy and not out of the efforts of a foreign secret society that had been apparently squashed several years prior.

ABOVE: Portrait of the Scottish physicist John Robison, who, along with the French Jesuit Augustin Barruel, helped popularize conspiracy theories about the Illuminati in the wake of the French Revolution

The arrival of Illuminati conspiracy theories in the United States

Robison and Barruel’s books became wildly popular throughout the English-speaking world, receiving dozens of reprints and influencing countless other publications. As a result of their books, the Illuminati paranoia quickly spread to the United States. American reception to the Illuminati conspiracy was deeply polarized. At the time, the United States had two main political parties: the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party.

The Federalist Party, led by John Adams, the sitting president, had strong support in New England and was generally more conservative. The Federalists wanted the newly-independent United States to maintain close ties to England. They had support from religious conservatives and they opposed the French Revolution.

The Democratic-Republican Party, on the other hand, led by Thomas Jefferson, the sitting vice president, had strong support in the South and was generally more progressive. The Democratic-Republicans were opposed to religious influence in politics and generally supported the French Revolutionaries.

In 1798, Reverend Jedidiah Morse, the pastor of First Church in Charlestown, Massachusetts, who was an ardent supporter of the Federalist Party, delivered three inflammatory sermons warning that the Illuminati had infiltrated the United States and that they were planning to violently overthrow President John Adams and establish a radical leftist regime. When pressed for more information, Morse declared that he believed that Vice President Thomas Jefferson was possibly the leader of the American Illuminati.

Other prominent New England ministers who supported the Federalist Party quickly took up the Illuminati conspiracy theory, including Reverend David Tippan (a professor of divinity at Harvard University) and Reverend Timothy Dwight (the president of Yale University). As a result of this promotion of Illuminati conspiracy theories by conservative religious leaders, many supporters the Federalist Party became convinced that the Democratic-Republican Party was secretly in league with the Illuminati.

Meanwhile, supporters of the Democratic-Republican Party declared that the ministers who were openly supporting the Federalist Party were the real conspirators, saying that they were trying to discredit their enemies through lies and slander and that they were eroding the separation between church and state.

ABOVE: Portrait of Reverend Jedidiah Morse, whose sermons against the Illuminati helped popularize Illuminati conspiracy theories in the United States

Although there is no evidence to suggest that Thomas Jefferson was ever involved in the Illuminati, Morse may not have been entirely wrong to associate him with them, since Jefferson was sympathetic to the Illuminati’s goals. Jefferson read Barruel’s Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism and wrote review of the book in a letter to Bishop James Madison (who is not the same person as the Founding Father James Madison) dated to 31 January 1800.

In this letter, Jefferson dismisses Barruel as a delusional fanatic, but goes on to say that, from reading the passages of Adam Weishaupt’s writing quoted in Barruel’s work, he couldn’t help but admire the man, seeing him as a true philosopher and friend of humanity. Jefferson writes:

“Barruel’s own parts of the book are perfectly the ravings of a Bedlamite, but he quotes largely from Wishaupt whom he considers as the founder of what he calls the order. As you may not have had an opportunity of forming a judgment of this cry of ‘mad dog’ which has been raised against his doctrines, I will give you the idea I have formed from only an hour’s reading of Barruel’s quotations from him which you may be sure are not the most favourable. Wishaupt seems to be an enthusiastic Philanthropist. He is among those (as you know the excellent Price and Priestly also are) who believe in the indefinite perfectibility of man.”

Jefferson goes on to compare Weishaupt favorably to the English philosopher William Godwin (lived 1756 – 1836). He further defends Weishaupt, saying that he only resorted to secrecy and mysticism because he “lived under the tyranny of a despot & priests” and that, if he had lived in the United States, he would have felt no need for secrecy and mysticism.

ABOVE: Portrait of the United States Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, who was repeatedly accused by his political enemies of being the leader of the American Illuminati and who voiced his support for Adam Weishaupt in a private letter to Bishop James Madison in January 1800

Illuminati conspiracy theories in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Throughout the nineteenth century, Illuminati conspiracy theories remained an important part of anti-Masonic rhetoric. Paranoia about the Illuminati and the Freemasons was especially prominent among religious conservatives in the United States. Two different political parties solely devoted to opposing the influence of the Freemasons arose during this time. Both parties called themselves the “Anti-Masonic Party.” The first one lasted from 1828 until 1840 and the second one lasted from 1872 until 1888.

In the early twentieth century, the Illuminati became incorporated into all sorts of anti-Masonic, anti-Semitic, and anti-communist conspiracy theories. For instance, the British far-right conspiracy theorist Nesta Helen Webster (lived 1876 – 1960) wrote numerous publications claiming that there was a global Illuminati-Masonic-Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy seeking to overthrow the governments of the world and usher in a global Reign of Terror like the one that had followed the French Revolution.

Several prominent figures in British politics subscribed to Webster’s conspiracy theories—most notably Winston Churchill, the future British prime minister. Today, Churchill is remembered for his role in leading Britain through World War II against the Nazis and it often forgotten that Churchill himself was a vicious anti-Semite with right-wing political sympathies. He explicitly endorsed Webster’s theories in an article published on 8 February 1920 in the Illustrated Sunday Herald titled “Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People.” In the article, Churchill writes:

“This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.”

Ironically, contrary to what Churchill says here, Adam Weishaupt was not Jewish at all, but rather a nominal Christian with anti-Catholic sentiments. Furthermore, Jewish people were actually forbidden from joining the Illuminati.

ABOVE: Photograph of the British politician Winston Churchill taken on 18 October 1929. In an article published in 1920, Churchill endorsed the theory that there was a global conspiracy of Jews, Bolsheviks, and Illuminati seeking to overthrow the governments of the world.

Discordianism and the spread of Illuminati conspiracy theories

It was in the late twentieth century that Illuminati conspiracy theories became even more popular than ever before.

In 1965, the American writers Greg Hill and Kerry Wendell Thornley published a book titled Principia Discordia, or How the West Was Lost. Only five copies of the first edition were printed, but, over the next several years, they revised the book several times and published increasingly large numbers of copies of these editions.

The Principia Discordia lays out the fundamental teachings of a new religion (or parody religion) known as Discordianism, which is centered around the worship of Eris, the Greek goddess of discord. Discordianism teaches that order and disorder are illusory man-made distinctions and that humans must reject these concepts in order to see the universe as it truly is: a realm of pure chaos. Followers of the religion are encouraged to promote chaos.

ABOVE: Illustration I made in June 2020 of the goddess Eris wearing a green peplos holding a golden apple and a xiphos. Eris the central figure in the modern religion of Discordianism.

While the Principia Discordia was being published, two men named Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson were working as associate editors for Playboy magazine. They regularly had to read letters written to the magazine by members of the general public, which often included bizarre, paranoid rants laden with conspiracy theories.

Inspired by the teachings of Discordianism, in around 1969, these authors began writing a satirical novel about a world in which all conspiracy theories are true. They eventually expanded this novel into a trilogy, which they published in 1975 as The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy portrays the Illuminati as an extremely powerful organization that secretly controls the whole world. In the books, the Illuminati are at constant war with the Discordians, who are trying to disrupt their power. The titles of the first two books in the trilogy, The Eye in the Pyramid and The Golden Apple, reference symbols that, by that time, had become associated with the Illuminati and Discordianism respectively.

Shea and Wilson’s books became popular with members of the 1970s counterculture. Today, The Illuminatus! Trilogy is seen as a cult classic. More importantly for our purposes, though, it helped popularize conspiracy theories about the Illuminati outside of right-wing political circles.

ABOVE: Front covers of all three books in The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

Pat Robertson and the Illuminati

In 1991, the American Evangelical Protestant minister, televangelist, and right-wing political pundit Pat Robertson wrote a bestselling book titled The New World Order, which drew heavily on the conspiracy theories of Nesta Helen Webster. In this book, Robertson declares that the Illuminati, the Freemasons, Jewish bankers, the New Age movement, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and various other organizations are all part of a giant global conspiracy.

Robertson claims that this conspiracy is guided directly by Satan himself and that its members are responsible for the French Revolution, the writing of The Communist Manifesto, and the creation of the Federal Reserve. He claims that the ultimate goal of this conspiracy is the creation of a totalitarian one-world government known as the “New World Order,” which will be controlled by Satan and his followers.

There is, I must note, no evidence for any of this; it is pure fantasy, born of religious fundamentalism and a conspiratorial mindset.

ABOVE: Front cover of Pat Robertson’s 1991 book The New World Order, in which he claims that the Illuminati are a part of a vast Satanic conspiracy to establish the New World Order

David Icke and the Illuminati

Unfortunately, things only get even weirder from here. Some of the other popular theories about the Illuminati are so bizarre and ridiculous that they make Pat Robertson’s claims actually look sane.

Since 1999, a British conspiracy theorist named David Icke has been claiming that the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the CIA, the FBI, and all other secret organizations controlling the world are themselves controlled by a race of inter-dimensional, shape-shifting reptilian aliens from the constellation Draco, sometimes known as the “Anunnaki,” the “Watchers,” or the “Babylonian Brotherhood,” who survive by drinking human blood.

Icke claims that all the governments of all the countries on Earth are secretly controlled by these Illuminati lizard-people and that prominent world leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II, Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and the Clintons are actually lizard-people disguised as humans. He claims that their true reptilian nature is revealed by the fact that, in some photographs, their eyes appear red. He also claims that the highest-ranking lizard-people secretly wear red dresses.

Icke claims that the reptilians came to Earth thousands of years ago and have been manipulating all the events throughout human history ever since, keeping humans permanently enslaved to their nefarious wills. According to Icke, these lizard-people lack consciousness and the only way to defeat them is for people to “wake up,” reject the lies they have been fed by the lizard-people, and see the truth.

Once again, there is no evidence for any of this. The reason why world leaders’ eyes sometimes appear red in photographs is not because they are lizard-people in disguise, but rather because of a very common, well-documented phenomenon known as the “red-eye effect.”

The fundus at the very back of the eyeball is red due to the high amount of blood present there. When a photographer uses a camera with a bright flash to take a picture of a person in an environment with low ambient light, the bright light of the camera flash can pass through the open pupil, reflect off the fundus, pass back through the pupil, and be captured by the camera, resulting in the person’s eyes appearing red.

ABOVE: Illustration by Neil Hague printed in David Icke’s 2005 book Infinite Love is the Only Truth showing Queen Elizabeth II, George W. Bush, and Tony Blair as Illuminati reptilians wearing red dresses

The Illuminati and the one dollar bill

Many people believe that the United States one dollar bill contains hidden Illuminati symbols. In particular, they think that the image of an eye inside a triangle floating over an unfinished pyramid on the left side of the reverse of the one dollar bill is a secret Illuminati symbol placed on the one dollar bill to display the Illuminati’s influence.

In reality, this image is the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States. The Great Seal appears on the one dollar bill not because it is a sinister marker of the Illuminati’s power, but rather because it was originally supposed to be proof of the bill’s authenticity.

The idea of putting the Great Seal on paper money goes way back to a time before copying machines and modern printers. In those days, it was extremely difficult for forgers to exactly replicate a complicated seal. Having the Great Seal on currency thus made it harder for someone to counterfeit it. Nowadays, any idiot with a copying machine can easily replicate the seal exactly, but the seal is still printed on currency out of tradition.

ABOVE: Reverse side of a United States one dollar bill printed in 2003

The unfinished pyramid symbolizes the United States of America. It is a pyramid because a pyramid symbolizes strength and duration. The pyramid is left unfinished to symbolize that the United States is not yet complete as a nation and that we are still building. The pyramid has thirteen levels of bricks, symbolizing the original thirteen states at the time of the nation’s founding.

As you can see, the letters MDCCLXXVI are written at the base of the pyramid. Proponents of the Illuminati theory hold that these letters are the year 1776, the year the Illuminati was founded, written in Roman numerals. It is true that the these letters do represent the year 1776 written in Roman numerals, but the reason why this year is written on the dollar bill is not because the Illuminati was founded in that year, but rather because that is the year when the Declaration of Independence of signed.

Beneath the pyramid, you will see the Latin phrase Novus ordo seclorum. Many conspiracy theorists have mistranslated this phrase as “The New World Order” and have tried to claim that this is a reference to the totalitarian global regime that the Illuminati are trying to establish. The conspiracy theorists, however, have both mistranslated the phrase and misinterpreted it.

Directly translated from Latin into English, the phrase Novus ordo seclorum actually means, “A New Order of the Ages.” The phrase is loosely adapted from the sixth line of the fourth of the Eclogues of the Roman poet Vergil (lived 70 – 19 BC). Vergil used the phrase in a passage describing the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire under the rule of Emperor Augustus (ruled 27 BC – 14 AD).

The phrase is used on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States to suggest that, just like the beginning of the Roman Empire, the founding of the United States is a pivotal event in the history of human civilization and that it marks the beginning of a new order of the ages, one in which nations are ruled by the people rather than by hereditary monarchs. In other words, the “New Order of the Ages” that the seal is talking about is the new nation of the United States, not a nefarious plot by the Illuminati to take over the world.

Above the pyramid, the Latin phrase Annuit cœptis is written. Translated from Latin into English, this phrase literally means “[He] approves [these] undertakings.” The implicit subject of the phrase is God. The phrase is, therefore, suggesting that God has approved the founding of the United States and ordained that the American people will prosper.

Proponents of the Illuminati conspiracy theory hold that the floating eye inside the triangle represents the eye of the Illuminati, observing all things that happen throughout the world. In reality, it is the All-Seeing Eye of Divine Providence, looking upon the unfinished pyramid that represents the United States with approval. The presence of the All-Seeing Eye here is merely a reiteration of same point implied by the phrase written in Latin directly above it: Annuit cœptis. It is here to suggest that God approves of the United States and has ordained prosperity for the nation.

ABOVE: Close-up image of the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States of America on the reverse side of the one dollar bill

ABOVE: Image from Wikimedia Commons of the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States of America

Contrary to popular belief, the Great Seal of the United States has very little to do with secret societies. Today, the Eye of Providence is widely associated with Freemasonry. As a result of this, many people have incorrectly assumed that the eye itself represents Freemasonry and that it always has.

In reality, back when the Great Seal was first approved in 1782, the Eye of Providence was only occasionally used by Freemasons; whereas it was commonly used by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and even sometimes by Protestants as a religious symbol. The three points of the triangle behind the eye symbolize the three persons of the Holy Trinity in Christianity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The radiance behind the eye represents the might and holiness of God.

If anyone should be paranoid about the reverse of the Great Seal, it should not be people who are worried about secret societies, but rather people who believe that church and state should be kept separate, since the reverse of the Great Seal is covered in Christian symbols and allusions to Christian theology.

ABOVE: Painting from 1525 by the Italian Mannerist painter showing the All-Seeing Eye of Providence floating above Jesus’s head as a symbol of God and the Holy Trinity. This painting has no known connections to Freemasonry or the Illuminati.

Present-day organizations claiming to be the Illuminati

There are dozens of organizations in existence today that claim to be the original Illuminati founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776. For instance, there is someone who frequently leaves comments under my answers on Quora advertising for people to “join the Illuminati,” claiming that doing so can make a person become rich and famous almost instantly. Obviously, this is a scam; if the Illuminati really still existed, I’m sure that the comments section under my Quora answers would be the last place they would think to advertise.

There’s also a website that claims to be the “official website” of the real Illuminati. This website has a tab you can click on to “join the Illuminati.” The organization that runs the website, however, seems to be far more interested in selling overpriced Illuminati-branded merchandise than in world domination.

If you click on the tab that says “Authentic Items,” it takes you to a website called “DØDIS,” where you can buy “Illuminati talismans” with prices ranging from $18 to $95, a copy of “The Eternal Oath” for $20, Illuminati T-shirts for $21, and all sorts of other useless, ridiculously overpriced merchandise. The “About” section on the website says:

“DØDIS (pronunciation rhymes with “goddess”) is the public name for the Department Of Distribution, the official production and delivery agents of the Illuminati.”

“DØDIS works with services in over 180 countries to ensure the widespread availability of authentic Illuminati books, banners, apparel, and artwork. As a public branch, we independently support the Illuminatiam’s global work for the preservation and advancement of the human species.”

“By coordinating the design, production, and delivery of items bearing the Illuminati’s insignia, DØDIS relieves the Illuminati of this logistical burden while enabling citizens to obtain authentic Illuminati items.”

Meanwhile, the misinformation presented elsewhere on the website about the Illuminati’s history proves that whoever owns the website’s knowledge of the eighteenth-century Bavarian Illuminati is extremely superficial and that these people have no purpose or mission beyond churning a profit.

There’s nothing wrong with selling overpriced Illuminati-branded merchandise, but these people should at least be honest about what their goals are.

ABOVE: Screenshot of the supposed “official website” of the Illuminati. A quick look around the website, however, reveals they’re really just selling Illuminati-branded merchandise.

One thing that all modern organizations claiming to be the Illuminati have in common is that they are all clearly nothing more than blatant money-making operations seeking to profit off the vast array of conspiracy theories that surround the alleged organization.

There is no evidence that any of these modern organizations has any legitimate connection to the original Bavarian Illuminati, nor is there any evidence to suggest that any organization calling itself “the Illuminati” has accumulated any significant amount of political power in any country on Earth in modern times.

Simply put, there is no evidence that anything recognizable as the Illuminati organization founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776 still exists in 2020.

The Illuminati—a benevolent organization?

What if the Illuminati did still exist, though? Would that really be so bad? Sure, Adam Weishaupt was a bit of a tyrant, some of the order’s activities were a bit cultish, and it is bit creepy how members of the order were pledged to absolute secrecy, but the ideals that the Illuminati believed in—the ideals of reason and secular republicanism—have now been embraced at least to some degree by educated people throughout the western world.

The Illuminati opposed monarchy and supported republican governments. Today, most countries in the western world are some form of republic, including even the Illuminati’s native Germany. Today, Bavaria is not governed by a prince-elector, but rather by the Landtag of Bavaria, a legislature composed of democratically-elected representatives, and Germany as a whole is governed by the Bundestag.

Worldwide, there are only a few monarchies left. Most of the monarchies that remain are constitutional monarchies in which the monarch is merely a figurehead. The number of absolute monarchies left in the world can be counted on one hand.

The Illuminati were also opposed the influence of religion in politics. As I discuss in this article from just under a week ago, religion continues to have a substantial impact on all levels of modern society, especially here in the United States. Nonetheless, the United States does not have an official state religion and a survey conducted by Pew Research Center in November 2019 shows that most Americans agree that churches and other religious organizations should generally stay out of politics.

Personally, while I disagree with the Illuminati’s methods, I’m not entirely convinced that a world in which their order was never wiped out and still existed in the twenty-first century would be the dystopian nightmare that conspiracy theorists make it out to be and I think it is possible that, to some extent, the Illuminati could even be a force for good.

ABOVE: Chart from Pew Research Center showing that most people in the United States think that religious organizations should stay out of politics