The year was 1776. In Bavaria, new ideals of rationalism,  religious freedom, and universal human rights competed with the Catholic church’s  heavy influence over public affairs. Across the Atlantic, a new nation staked its claim for  independence on the basis of these ideas. But back in Bavaria, law professor Adam Weishaupt’s  attempts to teach secular philosophy continued to be frustrated. Weishaupt decided to spread his ideas  through a secret society that would shine a light on the  shortcomings of the Church’s ideology. He called his secret society  the Illuminati. Weishaupt modelled aspects of his secret  society off a group called the Freemasons. Originally an elite stoneworkers’  guild in the late Middle Ages, the Freemasons had gone from passing  down the craft of masonry to more generally promoting ideals of  knowledge and reason. Over time, they had grown into a  semi-secret, exclusive order that included many wealthy and  influential individuals, with elaborate, secret initiation rituals. Weishaupt created his parallel  society while also joining the Freemasons and recruiting from their ranks. He adopted the code name  Spartacus for himself, after the famed leader of the  Roman slave revolt. Early members became the Illuminati’s  ruling council, or Areopagus. One of these members, Baron Adolph  Knigge, was also a freemason, and became an influential recruiter. With Knigge’s help, the Illuminati  expanded their numbers, gained influence within  several Masonic chapters, and incorporated Masonic rituals. By 1784, there were over 600 members, including influential scholars  and politicians. As the Illuminati gained members, the American Revolution also  gained momentum. Thomas Jefferson would later cite  Weishaupt as an inspiration. European monarchs and clergy were fearful  of similar revolts on their home soil. Meanwhile, the existence of the Illuminati had become an open secret. Both the Illuminati and the Freemasons  drew exclusively from society’s wealthy elite, which meant they were constantly  rubbing shoulders with members of the religious and  political establishment. Many in the government and church  believed that both groups were determined to undermine the  people’s religious faith. But these groups didn’t necessarily  oppose religion— they just believed it should be kept  separate from governance. Still, the suspicious Bavarian government  started keeping records of alleged members of the Illuminati. Just as Illuminati members begun to secure important positions in local governments and universities, a 1784 decree by Duke Karl Theodor  of Bavaria banned all secret societies. While a public ban on something ostensibly secret might seem difficult to enforce, in this case it worked. Only nine years after its founding, the group dissolved,  their records were seized, and Weishaupt forced into exile. The Illuminati would become more  notorious in their afterlife than they had ever been in  their brief existence. A decade later, in the aftermath  of the French Revolution, conservative authors claimed the  Illuminati had survived their banishment and orchestrated the overthrow  of the monarchy. In the United States, preacher Jedidiah Morse promoted  similar ideas of an Illuminati conspiracy against the government. But though the idea of a secret group  orchestrating political upheaval is still alive and well today, there is no evidence that the Illuminati survived, reformed, or went underground. Their brief tenure is well-documented  in Bavarian government records, the still-active Freemasons’s records, and particularly the overlap between  these two sources, without a whisper since. In the spirit of rationalism the  Illuminati embraced, one must conclude they no longer exist. But the ideas that spurred Weishaupt  to found the illuminati still spread, becoming the basis for many Western  governments today. These ideas didn’t start or end  with the Illuminati— instead, it was one community that  represented a wave of change that was already underway  when it was founded and continued long after it ended.