Everything around you is fake. It’s a mirage, a hologram, a facade. Everything you think, everything you see, your entire world—is a carefully orchestrated stage play to further the plot of a global shadow government. 

….Is probably what you think the Illuminati is about. We’ve all seen the videos accusing Jay-Z of being an illuminati member or “exposés” explaining in incredibly shallow detail all that the secret society does behind the curtain. But, in actuality, the Illuminati was an invention of the Enlightenment aimed at bringing the light of reason–hence the name–to the dark corners of Europe, one that never survived long enough to see the results of its work.

The Illuminati secret society was officially founded on May 1st, 1776 by a German professor named Adam Weishaupt. As a man of higher learning he was intimately familiar with the Enlightenment, and as such, established the Illuminati to replace Christianity with a religion based in reason. Weishaupt was also once a Jesuit, so when structuring his organization, he took heavy inspiration from the Jesuits. 

The primary hierarchical structure of the Illuminati had three classes. The lowest ranking members were in the first class, containing Novices, Minervals, and Less Illuminati. The second class was made up of Freemasons, another secret society closely aligned with the Illuminati, and contained Ordinaries, Scottish, and Scottish Knights. The third class had the highest ranking members split into either Priests or Regents, although some were proclaimed Maguses or Kings. Among its other secret society quirks, every member was referred to by a secret code name usually based in classical literature, and all communications were written in ciphers.

The original membership was made up of Weishaupt and students he hand-picked to assist him in his goal. Eventually, he went on to recruit from outside his city of Ingolstadt. Most new members were young men that came from noble or wealthy backgrounds. In 1778, the Illuminati started to associate with the Freemasons, which is where Weishaupt met his second in command, Adolf Franz Friedrich, Freiherr von Knigge. Knigge, besides expanding the Illuminati into a commanding, influential organization, was also the one who authored its constitution and established its communication system.

The Illuminati eventually grew to boast 2,000 members and to have a foothold in nearly every major city of Europe, stretching from Denmark all the way to Warsaw, Poland. Among its members were allegedly famous authors like Johaan Wolfgang von Goethe and Freidrich Jacobi, as well as the Duke Ernest II of Gotha. The Illuminati became a proponent of Enlightened Despotism and various other aspects of Enlightenment thinking, occasionally taking on a more radical edge; allegedly, the organization had ties to the Jacobins, who were a prominent political group during the French Revolution responsible for the Reign of Terror.

But, their survival wasn’t a guarantee. In 1785, Bavaria banned the Illuminati because they were supposedly plotting an overthrow of all of Europe’s monarchies. Members were either banished or imprisoned, and Weishaupt himself was fired from his job at his college and driven out from Bavaria. Those that managed to escape persecution disbanded the Illuminati permanently. From then on, the Illuminati was effectively dead.

That doesn’t stop the fact that major historical events are theorized to have been caused by the Illuminati in its efforts to establish a “new world order.” Even centuries ago, people were creating conspiracy theories about the Illuminati. Many living through the French Revolution thought it was instigated by the secret society. Eventually, these theories spread to encompass events outside of Europe, with some believing the Illuminati to be responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Nowadays, most people brush off the Illuminati as simply a hoax, but knowing the actual history behind the secret society lends its modern-day interpretation some more credibility.

Information retrieved from Encyclopedia Britannica and Knarf.english.upenn.edu.