On this day in 1776: The Illuminati, the modern day conspiracy theorist's favourite bogeyman, is founded in Bavaria

Ingolstadt town hall, a typical Bavarian building with a steep terracotta roof
Ingolstadt in Bavaria was home to Adam Weishaupt

Adam Weishaupt was born in Ingolstadt, Bavaria. He was orphaned young, and educated by Jesuits, before taking up a post in 1772 as professor of natural and canon law at the University of Ingolstadt. He was the first non-priest to hold the position, and his rationalist sympathies soon brought him into conflict with the university.

For Weishaupt, the dominant influence of the Bavarian monarchy and Church were stifling and incompatible with fashionable Enlightenment ideals of free thought and reason. In order to meet and share ideas with like-minded thinkers, he therefore resolved to form a society based on liberty and moral virtue in the pursuit of rational happiness. Although unwelcome in the eyes of statesmen and churchmen of the period, such fraternities and secret societies were commonplace in the eighteenth century. Accordingly, on 1 May 1776, in a forest near Ingolstadt, Weishaupt met with four others to found the Order of Perfectabilists, now more commonly known as the Illuminati.

An 18th century etching of Weishaupt
Johann Adam Weishaupt

The order’s structure had three levels. New members were “Novices”. Next came “Minervals”: a grade whose name honoured Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom. Finally, members were promoted to the rank of “Illuminated Minerval”. The new intellectual group appealed widely to progressive Enlightenment nobles, thinkers, and professionals. By 1784, the Illuminati may have had 2,000 to 3,000 members, with lodges abroad in Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Switzerland. 

Early supporters included Mayer Amschel Rothschild and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Another early joiner was Baron Adolph von Knigge. Although there was no formal connection between the Illuminati and Freemasonry, membership of both organisations was common among men inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment, and von Knigge’s creation of a 13-degree system for the Illuminati owed much to hjs experiences as a Freemason.

Trouble began brewing when rumours spread that Weishaupt was a revolutionary, possibly on friendly terms with radical groups in France. Internal disagreements also took their toll, with von Knigge eventually leaving after falling out with Weishaupt.

The society’s death knell came when a disgruntled former member sent a fanciful report of the Illuminati’s activities to the Grand Duchess of Bavaria. Her husband, the Duke-Elector, soon took action, and passed laws in 1784 and 1785 effectively banning secret societies.

A pamphlet from the 1780s in German showing the owl figure
An owl perched on an open book was the symbol of the Illuminati

In the wave of arrests that followed, the police found damaging materials in the homes of some members of the Illuminati: secret inks, defences of atheism and suicide, instructions for abortions, and even a plan for a female wing of the Illuminati. In 1787, a further law decreed the death penalty for membership of the Illuminati.

Weishaupt’s experimental society was over. He was sacked from the University of Ingolstadt, and moved to Saxony, where he took up a post teaching law at the University of  Göttingen. By the time of his death in 1830, he had reconciled to the Church, and renounced his former secret activities.

Despite the collapse of the Bavarian Illuminati after only a decade of existence, conspiracy theorists have ever since reveled in the notion that descendants of the Illuminati continue to operate in the shadows, driving a variety of subversive and elitist agendas.

A screenshot of three YouTube videos all with titles about the Illuminati and the New World Order
The Illuminati are a common theme in modern conspiracy theories Credit: YouTube

 

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