by Shivam Panda
The Illuminati. A secret global organization? A new world order? A group of famous people who secretly control the world? False. The actual documented organization called the Illuminati took birth in a country called Bavaria in the year 1776. New ideals of rationalism, religious freedom, and universal human rights competed with the catholic churches’ heavy influence over public affairs.
The idea of this society came from a law professor in Bavaria, Adam Weishaupt, who wanted to teach secular philosophy without the meddling of the church. He spread his teaching through a secret society, that would shine a light on the church’s shortcomings on ideology. He called his secret society, the Illuminati.
Weisshaupt modelled aspects of his secret society off an ancient group called the Freemasons. Originally an elite stoneworker's guild from the early middle ages, the Freemasons went from passing down the craft of masonry to more generally promoting ideals of knowledge and reasoning. Over time they had grown into a semi-secret, exclusive order that had elaborate initiation rituals and a number of wealthy or influential people among them.
Weishaupt created his secret society while parallelly joining the Freemasons and recruiting from their ranks. Since his ideologies outlined rationalism and free thinking many well-known scientists like Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei have been suspected to be a part of the Illuminati. Illuminati drew its funding from the elite and wealthy part of society, and consequently were consistently rubbing shoulders with members of the clergy and politics. Slowly the latter grew insecure of the motives of the former and formed the notion that they wanted to impede the stance of religious belief. While the Illuminati had their own ideologies, they were not against the idea of religion, they just felt it was important that religion and governance were two separate entities.
In 1783, duke Carl Theodore of Bavaria suspended the formation and running of secret societies and committees as a legal necessity, therefore marking the end of the Illuminati, unfortunately at its prime. Around this time, the members of the Illuminati had just started securing posts of influence in their respective local governments and universities, but its end marked the metaphorical win of the church in this battle for power and the ultimate exile of Weishaupt. It ended prematurely, a mere 9 years after its birth.
However, the Illuminati would become more notorious in its afterlife than it had ever been as a documented society. A decade later, in the aftermath of the French revolution, the literary scripts point to phantom clues that the Illuminati led the revolution, was it possible that the Illuminati had survived its raze?
One questions the influence of the Illuminati in the modern world and what part of the present is a direct result of their existence, but while one cowers in fear of the immense power such organizations must-have in the present scenario, one must consider that the Illuminati stood for rational thought, free-thinking and the pursuit of knowledge. So whatever evil conspiracy theory of the Illuminati may prevail in anyone's mind, the fact of the matter is the darkness the Illuminati works in is to enable a bright future.
- By Shivam Panda
A very interesting topic indeed...One which secretly scares yet fascinates anyone who has heard or read about them. Popularised by literary fictional works of authors like Dan Brown and movies alike, I think there is always a question of who is right and how much. As you have mentioned, the premise and the motive was admirable, but I wonder whether their cult like structure and the rituals in itself (if true) makes them similar to what they were opposed to in the first place.