the Illuminati
 

If you know nothing of the Illuminati it is an incredibly secret society started in the 18th century by a man named Adam Weishaupt. It is a society devoted to a one-world dictatorship and it's leaders are confirmed Satanists. It has supposedly had a hand in engineering everything from Communism to the Congress of Vienna, Napoleon's rise to power, and both of the World Wars. so my question is, does anyone believe in them or know anything interesting about them?

It's been "linked" with the Freemasons, Yale University's Skull and Bones, and even a race of reptilian shape-shifters by conspiracy wackos.. oops, pardon me, I mean.. "theorists."

Smells like your average paranoid fantasy to me.

About a year ago I came across a website that claimed to be a messageboard for members. It had a FAQ on their mandate but to post or view the boards you had to pay a $10 membership or something. All I remember was that one of their goals was something regarding abolishing any kind of state assistance for the disabled, suggesting that it should be the family's responsibility to take care of them or they should be 'put down'. They also explicitly denied any sort of allegations about the organization being racist. I don't really know enough about them though. I have a friend who's into all that but I think it's a little too xfiles for me...

The illuminati have (or had) a historical existence. It's much clouded first by their own claims that the order dated back to ancient egypt (which it almost certainly did not) and by an excellent and histerical series of books by Robert A. Wilson, well worth reading and full of hostorical facts. HOWEVER, he quite deliberatly makes no distinction between facts and wild flights of fancy.

Their really was an Adam Wesihaupt. There really was a secret cell within the Masons who called themselves the Illuminati. It's HIGHLY unlikely Weishaupt murdered and replaced George Washington halfway through his career.

Moreover, many who have read and enjoyed the books adopted the philosipjhy of one splinter group within it, Discordians and joyfully spread missinformation for the fun of it.

any conspiracy labels attributed to creating a fascist world order.. er new american century enjoys all manner of fantasy fears to keep people barking up the wrong trees.

Is it the illuminati that have their symbol as a pyramid with a floating eye above it? Or is that the Carlyle Group?

It is on a US dollar note, right?

That's a Masonic symbol. The innermost circle of the Masons may have been Illuminati at the time the dollar bill was drawn.

Of course, the Masons claim the eye and the pyramid are symbols which date back to their egyptian roots.

Both the Masons and the Illuminati were highly secretive and prone to deliberatly spreading lies about themsleves the beeter to keep their secrets. So parsing the truth about what their actual accomnplishments may have been is very hard.

Do you mean hysterical or historical, because, if it is the former, I may go get them.[/quote]

Hysterical. I've read and reread them many times. The three books were written by Robert Anton Wilson and anoter guy who's name I can't recall. Later books, nowhere near as good have been written by Wilson alone.

The books are, and I can't recall the order, the Eye in the Pyramid, Schroedinger's cat and... damn, I can't think of it. The'yve been published as a set under the name The Illuminatus Trilogy.

Illuminati is also a funny card game... eh, we'll just stop there.

I was never overly interested in the illuminati. I have my hands full with the problems of the widow's son.

I think that the Illuminati exist(ed), but as for controlling the whole world... well... no.

The Illuminati are not and never were Satanists, thank you very much. We don't need to participate in spooky secret societies, we can do everything we need to out in the open.

My first double post ever! Hooray!

so you're claiming membership? even if you were a member of the Illuminati and not making a bid for attention, I doubt that you would even know. the grunts never do.

I'm claiming to be a Satanist, and the leaders of the Church of Satan have stated that they have no affiliation with the Illuminati. We (including our priesthood) tend to make fun of them and all the other mystery cults (Masons, Rosicrucians, etc.).

Not that I'm questioning the mystery of the Masons, but they do have a temple in my town that is fairly easy to find. No hidden rock walls, no barriers of psychic force, no nothing.

Cue the speed metal, the white tigers, and the naked ladies carrying boa constrictors.

Satanists don't believe in satan, right?

There is no Illuminati. Drop it.

Thats exactly what one of their agents would say.

:fingertonose ;)

El Blanco told me to tell you all that he's going on vacation for a while. A long while.

There is no Illuminati. There is no F.N.O.R.D. There is no New World Order. We... Um, THEY do not have Hitler's brain cryogenically frozen. Partly because they do not exist. Drop it.

The mystery isn't usually in the existence of the cult or where they meet, it's the "mystical secrets" that the top dogs know and dole out in very small quantities.

Or the Mormons and their temples that are so special they won't allow non-Mormons in.

The Illuminati just happen to also be secretive as to their actual existence, which is about the only thing that separates them from Mormons in my mind.

Short answer: no.