Editing Illuminati (post-1700s)

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[File:Adam_Weishaupt01.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Adam Weishaupt]], founder of the [[Illuminati]], an 18th-century Bavarian liberal and secular secret society]]
The Order of the [[Illuminati]] was an [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment-age]] secret society founded by university professor [[Adam Weishaupt]] on 1 May 1776, in [[Upper Bavaria]], Germany. The movement consisted of advocates of [[freethought]], [[secularism]], liberalism, [[republicanism]], and [[gender equality]], recruited from the German [[Masonic Lodge]]s, who sought to teach [[rationalism]] through [[Western esotericism|mystery schools]]. In 1785, the order was infiltrated, broken up, and suppressed by the government agents of [[Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria]], in his preemptive campaign to neutralize the threat of secret societies ever becoming hotbeds of conspiracies to overthrow the Bavarian monarchy and its [[state religion]], Roman Catholicism.<ref name="Stauffer 1918">{{cite journal|author=Stauffer, Vernon L.|title=The European Illuminati|journal=New England and the Bavarian Illuminati|publisher=Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon A.F. & A. M.|date=1918|url=http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/stauffer.html|access-date=23 July 2009|doi=10.7312/stau92126-005|url-access=subscription}}</ref> There is no evidence that the Bavarian Illuminati survived its suppression in 1785.<ref name="McKeown"/>

In the late 18th century, [[reactionary]] conspiracy theorists, such as Scottish physicist [[John Robison (physicist)|John Robison]] and French [[Jesuit]] priest [[Augustin Barruel]], began speculating that the Illuminati had survived their suppression and become the masterminds behind the [[French Revolution]] and the [[Reign of Terror]]. The Illuminati were accused of being [[subversion|subversives]] who were attempting to secretly orchestrate a [[revolutionary wave]] in Europe and the rest of the world by spreading the most [[radicalism (historical)|radical]] ideas and movements of the Enlightenment—[[anti-clericalism]], [[anti-monarchism]], and [[protofeminism|anti-patriarchalism]]— which the accusers feared would lead to the destruction of the [[appeal to nature|natural order]] of things.<ref>{{cite news|first=Colin|last=Dickey|title=Did an Illuminati Conspiracy Theory Help Elect Thomas Jefferson?|url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/29/illuminati-conspiracy-theory-thomas-jeffersion-1800-election-152934|access-date=14 January 2024|work=BBC|date=29 March 2020}}</ref><ref name="Dickey 2023">{{cite book|author=Dickey, Colin|title=Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy|publisher=Penguin Random House|date=2023|isbn=9780593299456}}</ref> During the 19th century, fear of an Illuminati conspiracy was a real concern of the European [[ruling class]]es, and their oppressive reactions to this unfounded fear provoked in 1848 [[revolutions of 1848|the very revolutions they sought to prevent]].<ref name="McKeown">{{cite web|author=McKeown, Trevor W.|title=A Bavarian Illuminati primer|date=2004|url=http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/illuminati.html|publisher=Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon|access-date=23 July 2009}}</ref>

During the [[interwar period]] of the 20th century, [[fascism|fascist]] propagandists, such as British revisionist historian [[Nesta Helen Webster]] and American socialite [[Edith Starr Miller]], not only popularized the myth of an Illuminati conspiracy but claimed that it was a subversive secret society which served the Jewish elites that supposedly propped up both [[finance capitalism]] and [[State ideology of the Soviet Union|Soviet communism]] to [[divide and rule]] the world. American evangelist [[Gerald Burton Winrod]] and other conspiracy theorists within the [[Fundamentalist Christianity|fundamentalist Christian]] movement in the United States—which emerged in the 1910s as a backlash against the principles of Enlightenment [[secular humanism]], [[modernism]], and liberalism—became the main channel of dissemination of Illuminati conspiracy theories in the U.S.. [[right-wing populism|Right-wing populists]], such as members of the [[John Birch Society]], subsequently began speculating that some collegiate fraternities ([[Skull and Bones]]), gentlemen's clubs ([[Bohemian Club]]), and think tanks ([[Council on Foreign Relations]], [[Trilateral Commission]]) of the [[American upper class]] are [[front organization]]s of the Illuminati, which they accuse of plotting to create a New World Order through a one-world government.<ref name="Barkun 2003"/> ''[[The Illuminatus! Trilogy]]'', a series of three satirical novels by American writers [[Robert Shea]] and [[Robert Anton Wilson]], first published in 1975, which attributed the alleged major [[cover-up]]s of the era – such as [[John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories|who shot John F. Kennedy]] – to the Illuminati, was extremely influential in popularizing the myth of an Illuminati superconspiracy during the 1960s and onward.<ref>{{cite news|first=Sophia|last=Smith Galer|title=The accidental invention of the Illuminati conspiracy|url=https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170809-the-accidental-invention-of-the-illuminati-conspiracy|access-date=14 January 2024|work=BBC|date=1 November 2014}}</ref>