The word “Illuminati” has been branded with a lot of things by the popular media, and most of them are not that good to hear. To clearly understand what Illuminati actually is, we can start by analyzing the origin of the word. It comes from the Latin word illuminatus, which means “enlightened.” The Illuminati has been used to recognize different groups, which may or may not actually exist, because it is born as a secret society that moves behind plain sight, with intentions to fight against abuse of state power, systemic oppression and manipulation, and superstition, among many others.
Perhaps the only Illuminati group recognized historically is the Bavarian Illuminati, which is an Enlightenment-era group founded by Adam Weishaupt on May 1, 1776. As mentioned earlier, the secret society of Illuminati aimed to oppose the figures of injustices in the world that influence people’s actions and ultimately cause chaos. In order to do so, the group must maintain its secret society status and work on the things that they wanted to fix by controlling oppressive machineries, instead of blatantly dominating them.
The Bavarian Illuminati has been heavily vilified due to its revolutionary ideas. There were many allegations thrown against the secret society, but not all of them could be verified, and this caused the total abolition of the group after so many years. Of course, speaking like a conspiracy theorist, the Illuminati is said to have survived and is now up for something bad in the modern world. Again, this is just among the various allegations that remain unproven.
Perhaps you will get a more subjective information about the Weishaupt’s Illuminati by reading the article made by Terry Melanson in 2008, which uncovered a short account from the diary Henry Crabb Robinson that detailed the latter’s brief encounter with the father of Bavarian Illuminati himself.