Do you believe the Illuminati exists?

I've been on the internet long enough to keep hearing people on forums throw this word as if it explains all of the world's problems.

I personally don't think there's a group of elites that are controlling the outcome of every election, natural disaster, or major event. I also don't believe that they control the music industry by forcing artists like Lady Gaga or Madonna to cover one eye in their music videos or show occult symbols. I've even heard crazier theories that the Illuminati hates the traditional family and therefore created the "gay agenda" and the "androgynous agenda" to destroy it. I've also heard that they are anti religion and they are waging a war on Christians and western civilization.

In fact, if there is a group of people running the world, I think they would intentionally put these symbols out there to lead everyone into thinking that's the symbolism that the elite uses while they're behind the curtains doing something else. Also, if the Illuminati is so secret, how come their name can be found in almost any online forum in numerous threads or talked about in YouTube videos?

I feel like the kind of people who believe in this stuff are people who are afraid of the world slowly changing around them, so they have a tendency to latch onto any theory that might calm their fears about why the world doesn't conform to their way of thinking. In general, most conspiracy forums I go to tend to be full of bigots. The only thing that separates them from most bigots is that try to explain their worldview with pseudoscience and unproved theories created by people like Alex Jones or David Icke who profit off of their fear.

Here's one of the most notorious conspiracy forums. Tread lightly: http://www.davidicke.com/forum/

This one is called Above Top Secret. I actually like this one, as it's more about aliens, earth changes, and the supernatural instead of complaining about petty worldly matters: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/

This OP is longer than I intended it to be, but do you believe this "secret" group exists, and if so, what's your reasoning behind your belief?

I think the various secret society theory is more likely, although money is the bigger indicator of power, considering how much influence the Koch brothers have on American politics or the power that the Rockefeller family had back in the day.

 

I don't believe they exist.

 

I believe exit signs should always be illuminated.

 

Makes for good novels.

 

I think it's fun to listen to people like Alex Jones talk about this stuff, but I don't know how real any of it actually is. I think a lot of people are suckers for conspiracy theories. Look how many stupids think 9/11 was an inside job.

 

The Illuminati built America. What's the problem?

 

Well there were Empires and the Elite did own and run them...what happened to them..the Medici family and others like them...these people ran Europe.

did they all just fade into the abyss of decadence.

I don;t think their is one club but many...

 

A super secret society that controls vast portions of the worlds economic and political power does exist.......but they aren't called the Illuminati. Any secret society that is even reasonably good at keeping itself below the radar is going to have a made up secret society complete with mysterious rumors and thrilling stories as a distraction. Sort of like everyone knows that the real reason why the US denied Area 51 for so long was because it kept people focused on Area 51 instead of Area 69 which is where they are really keeping all the alien specimens and their anal beads and whatever else they use to probe hillbillies from Arkansas with.

 

It seems likely that there once existed something to start the myth, some group of powerful people, but I seriously doubt they ever had strong control.

Bottom line is I've seen no evidence.

 

No, I don't believe they exist.

 

According to some conspiracy theorists, Illuminati started with a Jesuit from Bavaria called Adam Weishaupt, can find a lot about that guy online, and I wouldn't believe a word of it. To be more realistic, it's like a mathematical formula. Suppose you want to find the solution to the unknown value of X. Maybe it's 42, but until you've sorted it out, it's just X. In that, Illuminati is like a strawman as a generic variable, could be any secretive group in a conspiracy theory. There's no right or wrong answer, per se, everyone has their own opinions, just what is more or less within the realm of possibility.

I've heard of the "gay agenda", never heard of "androgynous agenda" before. If it's about enlightenment, there are concepts of duality, that includes gender. That is not exclusive to any kind of secret society, though. It's just nature. Basically, Illuminati hates whatever the conspiracy theorist says Illuminati hates, however it plugs into their formulas. Occult symbols... depends upon your school of thought. Could be tarot, could be astrology, could be medieval heraldry, who knows?

This is a link to a Pepsi commerical, if constitutes spam, then may the mods remove it, but otherwise, notice how a very real agent of a very real monarchy has to pay homage to the _____ of America, and are they pretending?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYXxgzygEgw

Oh yeah, you got that right! Beware, the Joos walk among us. Paranoia is a beautiful thing to behold.

 

We've come this far in the thread, and no-one has mentioned the two top sources of information regarding the Illuminati. Wes Penre has done a huge amount of work in trying to sort this out:
http://www.illuminati-news.com/moriah.htm
A relative newcomer to the web claims to be the real deal:
http://armageddonconspiracy.co.uk/
There is a growing body of work here, but to me, these guys appear to be a group of British college students.
Is there a real Illuminati? Maybe.
In my own efforts to nail down the entities who represent evil forces in the world, there has been mention of a different order, called "Sion". Almost nothing can be found about them. This could mean that they don't exist, or their secrecy is being maintained. Supposedly, Sion is the ancient spelling of what has now become Zion. Take that however you want to, but if you run with it, the order would indeed go back a very long way, and the current representatives wouldn't mind at all if the entire world fell into line with their beliefs.
Maybe more accurate to say that the current guys wouldn't mind if the rest of the world just went away, leaving only their kind.

 

It's not a question of whether they existed (or still exist today), it's a question of whether they control all that conspiracy theorists believe they control. The Illuminati was very much a real organization back in the 17th-18th centuries. There are a lot of rumors and theories surrounding the Freemasons, as well... who still exist today (all across America in local chapters, etc). The Freemasons is said to be an offshoot/sect of The Illuminati. From what I've seen, these organizations have done charitable things to promote and improve their communities. It's possible that the hierarchy is much more than that and there's some globalist agenda, but I doubt that's related to the Freemasons.

I'd be more worried about the Builderbergs than The Illuminati. One and the same? Maybe... One is certainly still existing and has membership of the wealthiest people in the world (mostly liberal in nature and have globalist ideals, like the United Nations and IMF). Do they determine who's President of various countries? Probably not... but they certainly have enough money to sway political legislation favorable opinion their way. Just look at what George Soros does on his own... Now look at Builderbergs: many more billionaires with better reputations than Soros are in that League of Shadows (new supervillain team). Imagine what all of these billionaires would be capable of doing, if they joined/pursued a common cause.

George Soros destroys currencies, buys up Judges and Attorney Generals and manipulates the electoral system... Warren Buffet buys up newspapers and manipulates the media messaging... What other billionaire liberals are invested?

 

Yes there are rich/elites who control & manipulate the economy, international politics, and the worlds stock markets/currency to their financial benefit.

Is it some kind of mystical, lizard faced species, blessed by Lucifer or some other occultist BS? NO!

The stories, paranoia, and the fairy tales are also played to their advantage and they exploit them to the hilt, but they are just people with to much wealth and too much power, that we the peasants, the pawns that provide them with their strength and their power to control the masses as they see fit.

 

Some have theorized that the Illuminati infiltrated Freemasonry at the 1782 Congress of Wilhelmsbad. From recorded history, we can see that Freemasonry existed long before the Illuminati.

I started a thread called Ask a Freemason for anyone interested. 4Horseman, Robodoon, and I have had some good arguments in the Conspiracy Theory subsection on Freemasonry and the NWO.

 

Research our history, and, as you always hear....follow the money. Yeah, they not only exist. They're THRIVING right now.

 

I'll definitely head over to the other threads eventually. Just getting my head back in the game over here. =] Would love to jump in on some conspiracy debates. ;P

 

Unfortunately, the conspiracy section is mostly inactive, and when it is active, it's the same conspiracies over and over being discussed, (JFK, 9/11, Moon Landing).

 

The debates were interesting but those other two keep on getting banned for breaking the rules. Jack Napier also debates me from time to time on the Masons, but usually he incorporates the Masons only to attack that I don't have a mind of my own or that all of my beliefs are based on my Masonic affiliation.

What sucks is that a lot of the old threads no longer exist. When the forum went through a re-model a lot of old threads got dumped. One thread between me and 4H had 50+ pages on it. If you search "Mason" in the Advanced Search function it will still pop up a lot of threads, most I've responded to.

 

I don't know if they still call themselves the "Illuminati", but elites from around the world meet from time to time to determine the world's agenda for the next several years.

 

I know the Inebriati exists. You cannot apply. You have to be invited.

 

thank you. i should strive to be more grateful for even an Information Age, than I currently am.

 

Are you thinking of the Bilderbergers?

 

I don't think so.

 

Correcting your sentence structure:
I don't think. So....
Behold the Illuminati:
http://armageddonconspiracy.co.uk/