Illuminati Conspiracy Theory

Claim: A secret elite society, the Illuminati, allegedly controls world governments, media, and finance to establish a totalitarian "New World Order," supposedly signaling its influence through symbols on currency, in music videos, and corporate logos.

Origins: The real Bavarian Illuminati was a genuine Enlightenment-era secret society founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776, banned by the Bavarian government in 1785. It ceased to exist, but 19th-century writers (notably in the antisemitic and anti-Masonic tracts of the era) revived it as a symbol of hidden global control, a myth later amplified by 20th-century conspiracy authors.

Why it's false: No evidence of the historical Illuminati's survival beyond the 1780s exists. Modern "evidence" relies on pattern-matching common symbols (pyramids, eyes) that appear across unrelated organizations and predate any conspiratorial meaning. Sociologists note the myth persists because it offers a simple narrative for complex global inequality.

Status: Considered a foundational, essentially mythical, template for modern conspiracy culture.