In , as the city of Paris watched, dozens of Knights Templar were burned at the stake for their alleged crimes. Under pressure from the French crown, Pope Clement V formally dissolved the order in and redistributed their wealth. Rumors that the Knights Templar guarded artifacts like the Holy Grail and Shroud of Turin began bubbling up among conspiracy theorists.
A soldier of the Knights Templar, with the Cross of Lorraine pictured below. The Cross of Lorraine Croix de Lorraine in French is a double-barred cross that is featured prominently in the coat of arms of the Dukes of Lorraine.
Some eagle-eyed observers have claimed to spot the Cross of Lorraine in the Exxon and Nabisco logos and even stamped on Oreo cookies. Read more: Who Were the Knights Templar? The freemasons loom large in American history—after all, 13 of the 39 men who signed the U.
Constitution were Masons. But who are the freemasons? The freemasons can trace their routes to the Middle Ages in Europe, a time when most craftsmen were organized into local guilds. Cathedral builders, by nature of their profession, had to travel from city to city. Freemasonry quickly spread across Europe and to the American colonies. Freemasonry is not a religion, though members are encouraged to believe in a Supreme Being , or "Grand Architect of the Universe.
WorldCat WorldCat is a database of the holdings of many libraries throughout North American and some other countries. If you identify a publication you want to borrow, you can use your Interlibrary Loan ILL account to request it. Searching for eBooks Because this has been a topic for many years, there may be books in the following databases that are full text because they are no longer copyrighted. Internet Archive. Google Books This database can be searched using keywords. Full text articles from scholarly journals on many topics, including history.
So why did she? Michael, a man in his late forties who has been a member for six years, says, like Anna, he joined on the recommendation of somebody close to him. That's what it is all about. Unsurprisingly, many Freemasons are vague when discussing the fraternity's purpose, but two things crop up repeatedly when you ask why they enjoy being members. Anna, too, lists the charitable side of membership as something she enjoys.
Admirable though charity may be, people donate all the time without joining secretive societies. What else, then, compels people to not only join but remain committed members? You will come across people you've met in the past, certainly if you've lived in the area for a number of years. But what is a network for if it does not operate for the benefit of those involved?
It is not to be used for your own personal benefit. It really is for others. It's just as tough to tell what influence the Illuminati actually had as opposed to the influence people think they had. We do know the Illuminati had some influential members — along with many dukes and other leaders who were powerful but are forgotten today, some sources think writer Johann Goethe was a member of the group though other sources dispute the claim.
In a way, Illuminati influence depends on what you believe about them. If you think their revolutionary ideals spread to other groups, like the French Revolution's Jacobins , then they were successful. If you think those ideas would have prospered regardless, then they were mainly a historical curiosity. In , Duke of Bavaria Karl Theodor banned secret societies, including the Illuminati, and instituted serious punishments for anyone who joined them.
Most of the group's secrets were disclosed or published, and, if you believe most historians, the Illuminati disappeared. From the moment of the disbanding, however, the myth expanded. As described in Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia , documents found in the homes of high-ranking Illuminati members like Xavier von Zwack confirmed some of the spookiest Illuminati theories, like their dreams of world domination and cultish behavior even though those documents may exaggerate the truth about the group.
Almost immediately after the Illuminati were disbanded, conspiracy theories about the group sprang up. The most famous conspiracy theories were authored by physicist John Robison in , who accused the Illuminati of infiltrating the Freemasons, and Abbe Augustin Barruel , whose history of the Jacobins promoted the theory that secret societies, including the Illuminati, were behind the French Revolution. Historians tend to see these as the first in a long line of conspiracy theories though, again, for those who believe the Illuminati run the world today, this is arguably proof of the group's power.
Later on, some of the Founding Fathers managed to stoke interest in the Illuminati in the United States. In , George Washington wrote a letter addressing the Illuminati threat he believed it had been avoided, but his mentioning it helped bolster the myth. In the panic caused by the anti-Illuminati books and sermons, Thomas Jefferson was baselessly accused of being a member of the group. Though these early Illuminati panics fizzled out, they gave the group a patina of legitimacy that, later on, would help make a centuries-long conspiracy seem more plausible.
Conspiracy theories have always been popular in the United States, but for centuries, the Illuminati were less feared than the Freemasons. The Anti-Masonic Party was based on an opposition to the Freemasons, and though the party died out, Freemasons remained a focal point for paranoia in America.
Because the Illuminati recruited many members in Europe through Freemason lodges, the two groups are often confused for each other. To some degree, Freemason paranoia grew out of the Freemasons' influence in the United States. Many Founding Fathers were members, after all. And some key American symbols may have been derived from the Freemasons: There's a strong argument that the floating eye on the dollar, the Eye of Providence above a pyramid, comes from Freemasonry.
There's also an argument that it was meant as a Christian symbol; the only thing we know for certain is that it has nothing to do with the Bavarian Illuminati. That early Freemason paranoia can help us understand the conspiracy theories about the Illluminati today.
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