What is the Illuminati?

Question

People keep referring to it in the hip hop game, can someone

give me a quick summary on what the Illuminati is?

Answer 1

Favorite Answer

There have been several secret societies that have referred to themselves as the "enlightened ones", which is what "Illuminati" means in Latin. FICTION authors Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson wrote a trilogy of FICTION books that took these various coincidentally named groups and wove together a FICTIONAL story about an organization that was secretly controlling society:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Tril...

Did I happen to mention that this is a work of FICTION? See, unfortunately, conspiracy theorists just LOVE these books, and have settled on the notion that this group actually exists - that or they apply the term for this fictional organization to describe a "New World Order" group that they think actually exists. You will find a lot of drivel out there about how the Illuminati actually exist. Anybody who says the truth is stranger than fiction isn't very well read when it comes to fiction.

Perhaps the most famous group calling themselves Illuminati were a group of people who formed a secret society in Bavaria (Germany). After they were banned by authorities, what they did is they infiltrated the local Freemason societies, and kept on opertating under the guise of being Freemasons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati

Answer 2

Simlar to free mason.