What are the Illuminati?

The Illuminati where originally a secret group of rich men in the former country of Bavaria. They were founded during the enlightenment with the goal of spreading their enlightenment ideas to the government. The group faced some success but was ultimately shut down as a law was made that forbid secret organizations. An important thing to know is that the conspiracy theory of the Illuminati is not new, ever since being shut down theories were made about them supposedly still existing and influencing the politics of the world. The modern-day view of the secret order does not have much to do with the original group, their supposed symbol, the eye of Providence, was not even the symbol for the actual group.

How did the conspiracy theory come to be?

Illuminati as we know it through the conspiracy theories came to be because of Robert Anton Wilson. This man was a member of the faith of Discordianism. It was a joke religion meant as a parody of real faiths, it adapted a doctrine of anarchism. Robert was basically bored of the world an wanted to shake things up. That lead to him creating the Illuminati conspiracy theory. He made multiple texts about the supposed secret order, he intentionally made most of the text contradict each other. He even wrote a trilogy of books that he named: Illuminatus! and through these efforts he actually managed to make people believe in the Illuminati.

What are the beliefs of people who thing the Illuminati exist?

Probably due to the fact that Robert went out of his way to make his writings about the Illuminati contradict each other, the conspiracy theory about them has people who believe different things about the organization. A common belief is that the Illuminati is working towards total world domination. That the Illuminati in secret have taken control over most of the world, if not all of it. These secret government is known as the New world order. Another belief is from religious people who believe in the conspiracy theory, they of course claim that the Illuminati are worshippers of Satan, as far as I can tell these people do still also believe in the new world order. But it gets sillier than that. Some people claim that the two Hip-hop singers Jay-Z and Beyonce are the King and Queen of the Illuminati, this claim is supported by the fact that these two have been seen making triangle shapes with their hands during concerts, with the supposed symbol of the illuminati being a triangle with an eye in the middle.

Why is the theory most likely not true?

These claims are not supported by sufficient evidence. The origins of the conspiracy theory do of course already remove the legitimacy of the Illuminati, but let's ignore that for a second and look at the evidence provided for the theory. From my research I have not been able to find any substantial evidence. What the believers point out is that Beyonce and Jay-Y have been seen making triangles with their hands during concerts. But then one would wonder, if these two were actually the leaders of the secret Illuminati, why would they even be showing their symbol like that? Mabey it is more likely that these two simply make fun of this conspiracy theory. There is also stuff like supposed hidden messages in songs. When you play certain song backwards it sounds like the reversed lyrics talk about the Illuminati. But messages in reversed lyrics have been talked about before, and they are mostly just coincidental. Lastly it is just certain things that have the Eye of Providence on them, an example of this is the American dollar. But as the Eye of Providence is an already established symbol, that does not work as evidence.

Final words:

I will end this by encouraging you to be critical when reading stuff on the internet. Source criticism is really important considering conspiracy theories like this spread by people who are not critical. Anyone can write anything on the internet, thus making it breading grounds for fake news. There are things to look out for when wanting to view what you read with criticism. Is the article you're reading on a legit website? Does the thing you read about appear on multiple websites, if you read about something seemingly important it is likely that multiple websites would talk about it. Does the article appear to be too ridiculous? And lastly, does it seem like it is meant as satire? With these things in mind, you should be able to spot most fake new out there.