A link can be found at -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati
According to the article, a real “Illuminati” existed in Bavaria in the 18h century and was supposed to have been disbanded, or destroyed by government fiat.
Apparently it had an appeal to the literati of the time. I’ve often heard Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quoted in one way or another, but the only thing I’ve read was a poem of his when I did a bit of German at school. But whenever I read his name, I get this funny sort of feeling about him. I can’t pin it down, but I wonder if he dabbled in spiritualism or mysticism, amongst other things. If he’d been in the Illuminati as claimed in the article, then I’d assume he did. it seems a bit strange that he would write “Faust” for example and then claim membership of the Illuminati.
My old pastor was not much into last days stuff. He felt a lot of the modern end-times theology was of American origin and was a ‘bit weird’ to quote his own words. He commented the Europeans had a much longer Christian experience, and they didn’t feel the same way about events as the Protestant Americans seemed to do. I suppose one could put the American fascination with last days theology to the fact that as Bonhoeffer put it, American Protestantism was the result of a church in flight, fleeing persecution rather than staying behind to fight it. The second factor was the Civil War which had a tremendous influence on a religious society, along the the huge loss of young men at the time. It would have been one of the influences on Mormon polygamy for example.
However he did comment “I think they’re (the Illuminati) are alive and well.” I suppose it’s not too difficult to imagine a cabal of very powerful and / or wealthy individuals using their influence in some sort of network to aim at world government and domination. After all, if the literal Anti-Christ is going to be a man, he won’t be able to do it by himself. He’d need a lot of willing support.
So I’m inclined to go along with the old pastor’s comment, but proving it is another matter. From experience I found he was usually right, and I could give you several prophecies where he proved to be correct after his death eg. talking just after the First Gulf War, he commented, “I think there’ll be a Second Gulf War. I think the Americans will have had enough of him (Saddam Hussein) and they’ll get rid of him. But I think they might lose a
few men the next time.”, with an emphasis on “few” which clearly implied he meant they’d lose more than a “few”. History bears that out for example.
So I’m inclined to think they exist today, but on the other hand, I don’t go in for conspiracy theories, except for a few instances. I think Nikita Kruschev was behind the John Kennedy assassination for example, as Kennedy had stared him down over the Cuba missile crisis. He wasn’t the sort of man to take that lying down. Hence the silencing of Lee Harvey Oswald after the fact, as he had been in Russia. I suspect when the Politburo found out, they got rid of Kruschev, as he would have been seen as too much of a risk taker.
That was his opinion more or less, and it makes sense.
So I think the Illuminati exists, in one form or another.