Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Real Illuminati

Episode Date: December 6, 2020

In 1776, an obscure Bavarian professor of philosophy created a society for like-minded individuals who upheld the values of the Enlightenment. Fast forward over 200 years, and that organization is now the basis for conspiracy theories and fantastic stories of global dominance. Learn more about the Illuminati, the real Illuminati, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1776, an obscure Bavarian professor of philosophy created a society for like-minded individuals who upheld the values of the Enlightenment. Fast forward over 200 years, and that organization is now the basis for conspiracy theories and fantastic stories of global dominance. Learn more about the Illuminati, the real Illuminati, on this episode of Everything Everywhere daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison.

Then your yoga teacher says that sex. Traffic children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals, but it's all okay. The great awakening is coming. What is happening? Every week on Conspirality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family, and wellness gurus down the right-wing cult spiral in a search for salvation. This episode is sponsored by Scotty Vest. You don't have to be a member of an international secret society seeking global dominance to have secrets. You might just want to walk down the street and not advertise all the stuff you're carrying. Scotty Vest clothing and jackets have pockets for all your gear that you don't want to advertise

to the world that you're carrying. That could include a tablet, smartphone, earbuds, sunglasses, a passport, and your wallet, all at once without anyone being the wiser. You can get 15% off your next order by going to Scottyvest.com and using coupon code everything everywhere, all one word, at checkout. The Illuminati is a legendary organization that lurks in the shadows and controls and controls the levers of power across the globe. According to some, it also has something to do with lizard people and or the hip-hop industry.

Believe it or not, the Illuminati isn't a totally fabricated story. There really was a group called the Illuminati that was the basis for all the conspiracy theories which exist today. However, it didn't have anything to do with controlling the world economy, and the founders would probably be shocked to see what people think of it today. The story of the Illuminati started in 18th century Bavaria, with a scholar by the name of Adam Weishop Weisshop was from a family of Jewish converts to Christianity. He had an uncle, which took an interest in his education, and enrolled him in a Jesuit school. After his graduation, he took a position at the University of Ingolstadt, where he became a professor of natural and canon law.

He was the only member of the faculty, who was not a Jesuit priest. Weisshopped was a big believer in the Enlightenment. This was the philosophical movement which underpinned much of the 18th and 19th century, and ushered in such things as the American Declaration of Independence, the French Revolution, and ultimately the industrial and scientific revolutions. Weisshop was anti-monarchy, anti-church, and pro-science. Such people in the 18th century were often called free thinkers. Bavaria at the time was a deeply conservative Catholic country.

And by the way, Bavaria was not a part of Germany back then because Germany, as we know it today, didn't exist until 1871. But that's another episode. At the university, Weissop was constantly budding heads with the clerical faculty who was preventing him from bringing modern ideas into the classroom. As a background to all of this, secret societies such as freemasonry were becoming very popular in Europe at the time, and they were much more open to freethinkers such as Weissopped.

However, Weissop found Freemasonry to be expensive and not totally in line with his beliefs. So he did what any modern 18th century free-thinking gentleman would do. He started his own secret society. The original name for the group was the Bun Der Perfectibilistin or the convent of perfectability. But that name really doesn't quite strike fear into people. The organization was founded on May 1, 1776, with Weisshop and several of his students.

Everyone in the organization had classical names that they gave themselves. Weisshop was called Spartacist. Other early members were Ajax, Agathon, Tiberius, and Erasmus. The order had three levels, novices, minervals, and illuminated minervals. The word Minerval comes from the Roman goddess of wisdom. Minerva. The Owl of Minerva was also the symbol of the group. In April 1778, they rebranded to become the Illubanaten Orden, or the Order of the Illuminati, which, you have to admit, just from a marketing standpoint, works out way better than the covenant of perfectability.

Over the next few years, the order expanded quite rapidly. By 1782, they had about 600 members, and by 1784 it was estimated that there were between 2,000 and 3,000 Illuminati. Most of the members were from the upper rungs of Bavarian society. They included noblemen, lawyers, teachers, doctors, and politicians. The notable German writer Gertha was also a member. The order also became more complex. The three levels were expanded, so there were 13 degrees of initiation with three classes, Aluminatis Minor, Aluminatist de Gurgens, and a top level called King.

One member, Baron Adolf von Kniigy, whose name I am purposefully mispronouncing, was a very influential member of the order and was responsible for much of its growth. The baron had deep ties in Freemasonry and used those connections to recruit for the Illuminati. In fact, they tried to get the Illuminati recognized as one of the Masonic rights. However, he soon began battling Weisshopped about the aims and procedures of the order, and he eventually quit, which caused a massive rift in the organization. Weist Hop was deeply anti-clerical, and Kneggy was not, and didn't want that to be the defining characteristic of the order.

lest it prevent them from expanding and gaining new members. Kinniggi was eventually pushed out, and they lost the person who was most responsible for the growth. However, by the time that happened, the writing was on the wall for the Illuminati. The supposedly secret order had become known to many people in the kingdom. This included both the Duke of Bavaria and a competing Freemasonry group called the Rosicurians, who were pro-monarchy and pro-church. One former member, Joseph Utsch-S.

Schneider, wrote a letter to the Grand Duchess of Bavaria detailing all of the secrets of the order and mixed in some lies as well. He said the Illuminati was working with Austria to overthrow Bavaria, and they were committed to atheism. This led to a series of edicts by the Duke of Bavaria to end the order. In 1784, he issued an edict which prohibited any group which wasn't approved by the state. The Illuminati didn't think this applied to them, so in 1785, the Duke issued another order which explicitly banned the order of the Illuminati. Then in 1787, just for good measure, another edict was issued, which confirmed that the order was in fact banned and the penalty for anyone found being a member was death. So from beginning to end, the order of the Illuminati didn't even last a decade. So where did this modern notion that the Illuminati controlled the world come from?

The end of the 18th century was a time of great turmoil in Europe. One of, if not the biggest event, was the French Revolution. Many of the ideas espoused during the French Revolution were Enlightenment ideas, which could have come straight from the Bavarian Illuminati. Conservative monarchists in Europe looked at the French Revolution and saw in at the Illuminati, and began spreading the tale that the Illuminati never died, but in fact they were responsible for the French Revolution. At the very end of the 18th century, several books were written which made the claim that the Illuminati were behind everything. Augustin Baroul's book, Memoirs illustrating the History of Jacobinism, and John Robinson's book, book Proofs of a Conspiracy were the first books which linked the Illuminati to conspiracy theories. In 1802, proofs of the real existence and dangerous tendencies of Illuminism by Reverend Seth

Payson was published which also furthered the argument. Calling someone a member of the Illuminati was the late 18th or early 19th century equivalent of calling someone a communist before they were communists. The association wasn't necessarily with a grand global conspiracy as it is today. Many Freemasons also spread the Illuminati myth because of the previous close ties with Freemasonry, and the concern that the Illuminati might still have adherence within Freemasonry. In the election of 1800 in the United States, one of the charges leveled at presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson was that he was a member of the Illuminati. Over time, as the ideas of the original Illuminati became less controversial, and the popularity

of secret societies like Freemasonry subsided, the Illuminati were mostly forgotten. However, in the 20th century, they made a comeback. During the hippie revolution in the 1960s, a movement called discordism started. It began with a book known as the Principa Discordia, and was an odd combination of a fake religion, a general anti-authority movement, and an excuse to pull pranks. Writer Robert Anton Wilson was writing for Playboy magazine, and he began writing letters to the editor to Playboy,

and then answering those same letters, talking about the Illuminati. and he was a huge advocate of discordism. In the 1970s, he co-wrote a trilogy of books called Aluminatus, which was advertised as a fairy tale for paranoids. The book, which is fiction, tied in a bunch of conspiracy theories including the Kennedy assassination, the Eye of Providence, which is on the back of the U.S. $1 bill, and tied it all to the original Bavarian Illuminati.

The book was a bestseller, was adapted for the stage, and in 1975, a popular card game was introduced called Illuminati. From here, the idea of the Illuminati got into the popular consciousness. It was a plot device in books like Dan Browns, Angels and Demons, as it was in the 2001 movie Tomb Raider. Rappers like Jay-Z began making the triangle symbol with his hands, which has many fans believing that he, Beyonce, and Kanye West are members of the Illuminati. Many people didn't get the memo that the whole Illuminati revival thing was fake.

According to a 2013 public policy polling survey, 28% of Americans believe there is an actual... Illuminati. Global dominance in having a hand in every modern historical event for over 200 years is pretty amazing for a group that couldn't even go 10 years without splitting apart and having its members spill all of its secrets. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Mackala. The associate producer is Thor Thompson. Today's first five-star review comes from Podcast Republic. The first is from Abdu who writes, great podcast worth all the support. Listener HZI also writes,

Fantastic, thanks for your effort. Thank you, Abdu, and HZI, and thanks to all of you who've left reviews. Remember, if you leave a five-star review, you too can have your review read on the show.