MODERN-DAY conspiracies do not get much bigger than the idea of a shadowy, secret society such as the Illuminati.
Facts are twisted with fiction in many of these stories, as we try to separate the two and see what lies behind the wild claims.
What is the Illuminati?
In 1776, Adam Weishaupt founded a secret group in Bavaria called The Order of the Illuminati.
He believed that "the monarchy and the church were repressing freedom of thought".
The reason behind forming the group he said was that "he decided to find another form of ‘illumination', a set of ideas and practices that could be applied to radically change the way European states were run."
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Weishaupt based it on the Freemasons, complete with hierarchy and mysterious rituals, and decided upon the name to reflect the enlightened ideals of its educated members.
Soon growing from a handful of men to a few thousand, when the Duke of Bavaria outlawed secret groups on punishment of death in the late 1780s, the real-life group disbanded.
What conspiracy theories are there?
According to theorists, the Illuminati has been conspiring to establish a "New World Order" that would set up a single government to control the planet.
It is alleged that the clandestine group has agents who control movies, music, banks, governments and other powerful institutions.
They believe their influence, combined with strategic decisions, will result in a totalitarian one-world government or another sinister outcome.
Theorists have pointed to other secret societies, like Skull and Bones and the Bilderberg Group, to claim that they're front organizations for the Illuminati.
Nowadays, the Illuminati has become a name linked by conspiracy theorists to everything from the "faked" moon landings, the 9/11 terror attacks and the assassination of JFK.
Just an internet search into such conspiracies will send you down a rabbit-hole of websites trying to link the secret organisation to so much in history and the modern day.
Is the Illuminati real?
Despite what you may have been told, there is no evidence to suggest the original order exists.
In 1797 and 1798 a series of books were released that suggested the Illuminati survived the purge and they were implicated in the French Revolution.
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These books caused concern over the survival and activities of the secret society.
In the present day, many groups reference links to the Illuminati but these are unproven and likely to be attempting to attract subscribers.
Anything that can be questioned in society is somehow linked to clandestine organisations who control the world and the governments that sit underneath them but whether it be the Rothschilds, the JFK assassination or the "New World Oder", there is no proof for the existence of the secret group that once existed in Bavaria.
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