How the Illuminati conspiracy theory started | BBC Ideas
Is Jay-Z really in the Illuminati? Is Donald Trump? Is Katy Perry? Am I? Everyone from the BBC to Beyoncé has been accused ofbeing part of the Illuminati – a secret
group said to comprise ofthe world's most powerful people seeking to establisha new world order.Even if you haven'theard of the Illuminati, chances are you've probably seen oneof the symbols associated with them.
Pentagrams, goats, even the all-seeing eyethat's found on US banknotes.
References have also cropped upin music videos, such as Rihanna's S&M, which featured a fake newspaperwith a headline declaring her.
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So why do musicians and artists like to play aroundwith references to the Illuminati? I think quite simply, they're just having fun.
They're just entertained by thesestories like many of us are.
I'm reminded of a conspiracytheory from 1966 that Paul McCartney of The Beatleshad died in a car crash on the way home afterdoing some recording and he'd been replacedby a Canadian DJ who looked a lot like him and quicklylearned to play the bass and sing.
Paul McCartney has never deniedthis conspiracy theory.
He's always kept quiet about it and I think McCartney, like Jay-Z, Rihanna and others, is just entertained by the story.
So who are the Illuminati? Are they really a shadowy elitewho control the world? The Illuminati were, to the best of our knowledge, a Bavarian secret societyformed in the 18th Century.
It opposed superstition, religiousinfluence and state authority.
They even created a rule bookwhich stated that.
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The Bavarian groupeventually faded into irrelevance and has nothing to do with modernconcepts of the Illuminati.
The conspiracy theorythat we know about today stems from the Discordian movement.
The story goes thatDiscordianism began in 1965 in the office ofa Texas drug attorney.
Two schoolmates.
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used the office photocopierto publish copies of the Principia Discordia, the movement's founding text.
The book promoted the idea that.
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and Discordianism gathered steamthroughout the 60s and 70s with Hill and Thornleyactively trying to cause mischiefand spread disinformation.
Their mission was expanded evenfurther by two other Americans – a writer called Robert Anton Wilsonand his friend Robert Shea.
Wilson was editor at Playboy and the two of them decidedthey would write a novel and they would throw all of the greatconspiracy theories into this novel and call it Illuminatus.
And in fact, they enjoyed it so muchthey turned it into a trilogy.
They decided that it wouldbe fun to try and spread a little chaos and misinformationdeliberately about the Illuminati and they did this by writing lettersto the mainstream press, by writing letters to fanzines -which were popular at the time – but also through theletters page of Playboy itself.
They would also write in lettersfrom imaginary readers saying that the Illuminatiweren't real at all or were kind of sitting on the fence.
It didn't really matter, what didmatter is that all these people seemed to be generating thisconversation about the Illuminati.
And the idea was that you, as the reader, were supposed to question that, interrogate it, ask, “Are they really real?” The myth travelled far and wide.
Wilson and Shea'sThe Illuminatus Trilogy attributed some of themysteries of the time, such as, “Who shot John F.
Kennedy?”to the Illuminati.
Although the multitudeof conspiracy theories that appear in the trilogyare imaginary, they're blended with enough truthto make them seem plausible.
Probably the oddest theorywas the suggestion that Adam Weishaupt, the founderof the Bavarian Illuminati, assassinated George Washingtonand assumed his identity {as President of the USA.
Believers of this theorypoint to Washington's portrait on the US one dollar bill which they suggestis actually the face of Weishaupt.
Despite its lack of mainstream salesthe trilogy became a cult favourite.
It was even made into a mammotheight-hour stage play in Liverpool, launching the careers of Britishactors Bill Nighy and Jim Broadbent.
The 70s print magazine cultureseems distant now from our globalisedhyper-connected internet, but Illuminati rumours are still rifeon websites such as 4chan and Reddit where believers swap their favouriteversions of the conspiracy and champion evidenceto prove it's still in existence.
Ultimately it's not down to a shadowyelite whether you choose to believe in the Illuminaticonspiracy theory or not.
It's up to you.
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