“Oh shit, Ben’s been reading too far into conspiracy theories!” Yeah, I guess. But it’s bloody interesting. What else to do during an extended summer break? So to start off, I’ll give a moderately detailed overview of what the Illuminati is all about, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Illuminati means “the enlightened” in Latin. Historically, the name refers specifically to the Bavarian Illuminati, which was an enlightenment-era secret society founded in Ingolstadt by Adam Weishaupt back in 1776. The group mainly consisted of advocates of freethought; secularism; liberalism; republicanism and gender equality. No documentation regarding how their meetings were constructed exists, nor does any plans of action. They were purported to have been a conspiritoral organisation that acted as a “power behind the throne.” They allegedly controlled and facilitated world affairs through governments and corporations, and were believed to be the masterminds behind events that would eventually lead to a New World Order. [All potentially false speculation.]
The group was infiltrated, broken up and surpressed by government agents of Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria in 1785, due to speculation (Speculation = key word) of conspiricy to overthrow Bavarian monarchy and potentially Roman Catholicism. However in the late 18th century, reactionary conspiricists such as John Robinson and Augustin Barruel began to suggest in their writings that the Bavarian Illuminati survived their oppression and were the masterminds behind the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Speculation of their existence and potential governmental influence continues to this day, and appearances in popular culture are frequent – if slightly demonising. Refer to the 2001 film adaption of “Lara Croft Tomb Raider” and any books by Dan Brown to see what I mean.
We got there in the end. Phew.
Now to me, it seems like a really cool concept. Crooked governments being controlled by a shady organisation and so forth. And secretly, deep down, I know that everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, loves a good old conspiracy theory. And furthermore, EVERYBODY wants to believe them. Don’t you dare try to deny it. I simply love to keep an open mind about these things. Makes life a bit more fun that way, and much less black and white! 😛
I’ll now demonstrate how fun it is. So let us assume for one moment that we have been granted special insight into the goings on of the British Government. Let us assume that the Government is in fact being controlled by a shady organisation known as the Illuminati. Some members of Parliament may even be members. For arguements sake, we’ll assume that David Cameron joined the Eton branch of the Illuminati, as did Gordon Brown before him in Glasgow (hehe). All the major decisions made by Parliament – and even some world events – were potentially drawn up and facilitated by masterminds attempting to reach New World Order. This could include the rise in tuition fees; pension cuts; the fox hunting ban; the banning of smoking in public places and the News of the World phone hacking scandals, to name but several other things.
SEE HOW COOL THIS IS?!
However, the motives for the Illuminati’s alleged decisions in these matters still seems hazy. Are they trying to achieve NWO through chaos and social unrest? Could the rise in tuition fees and the phone hacking scandal and the rest all have been decisions made in order to potentially trigger a global uprising or the downward spiral of society? Let’s hope so, because if they were trying to achieve New World Order through liberal means, they’d be going about it completely the wrong way! 😛
This is beginning to sound like we’re in Deus Ex! [BTW, it’s the best video game of all time, go and buy it NOW.]
And now, let’s inject a bit of rationality back into our systems and assume that all the governmental decisions and scandals were actually facilitated and carried out by the governments and corporations, with no influence from outside factors.
BORING! WHERE’S THE ILLUMINATI WHEN YOU NEED THEM?!
The debate is now open. What do you think? Personally I’d love to think that they do exist and that they really do control world affairs. But the sad truth probably is that they were as harmless as the Freemasons; the members mainly consisted of out-of-touch grumpy old 50-somethings; they had no real say in political agendas and they didn’t really survive their suppression back in 1785. The modern day enlightenment cults such as the Ordo Templi Orientis and the more right wing surviving factions of the Freemasons are probably the closest thing we have to a modern day Illuminati, and most of them are harmless and/or bogus.
And yet, the Coalition Government could really use a mastermind or two, don’t you think? 😉
benk8319 