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activist actions. Many famous revolutionaries developed their radical ideaswhile they were Freemasons. Because of this association with Enlightenmentradicalism, people who opposed revolution tended to view Freemasons as theenemy. This is a common pattern: the elite always think revolutions are plannedand directed by a small group of enlightened people, instead of by masses ofpeople themselves.In reality, Masonic lodges are elaborate social clubs for people who want tofeel elite. In some places, Masonic lodges have provided a place for intellectualsto discuss how to change society, but they’re usually pretty boring. If you gointo a Masonic temple today, you’ll see groups of small business owners talkingabout how to plant trees on Main Street, not a secret group plotting to rulethe world. Nevertheless, their association with the original Bavarian Order ofIlluminists has meant they’re always included in Illuminati theory.The Bavarian Illuminati, and its association with Freemasonry, is the firstpiece of the Illuminati theory we hear today. But there are two other importantpieces to most Illuminati theories: anti-Semitism and the antichrist.The Second Piece: Anti-SemitismDistrust, prejudice, and hatred toward Jews arose in Europe hundreds ofyears ago. Europe was ruled by kingdoms allied with the Catholic Church afterthe collapse of the Roman Empire. Jews were banned from playing a majorrole in the economy or gaining political power. Over time, different Jewishcommunities found ways to survive at the edges of society, doing things thatmainstream society looked down upon, like lending money. Soon Jews as awhole became associated withthis profession. At first thisprofession wasn’t very powerful.But as capitalism developed,money-lending (credit) becamemore important.As capitalism developed,millions of people were drivenoff the land, and forced to workfor poverty wages in the newfactories of industrial Europe.Because Jews were alreadyFactory work in the industrial revolutionidentified with money and credit,was exhausting and unsafe, like in manydifferent groups began to viewfactories around the world todayJews as a symbol of capitalismitself. Many European workers believed Jews used their role as financiers to gainpower and exploit people. Jews also provided a convenient scapegoat for thepetit-bourgeoisie: small business owners trying to become big-time factory owners.This class resented the debts they had to take out in order to expand their5

businesses. They viewed financiers as an obstacle to “fair” competition. In theearly 20th century, Jewish communities regularly suffered attacks by mobs ofworkers and petit-bourgeois business owners. Especially in Eastern Europe andRussia, “pogroms” (lynch mobs against Jewish neighborhoods) were a commonoccurrence.Anti-Semitism united poor workers with small business owners, despitetheir opposed interests. The poor workers were angry about their treatmentunder capitalism, but saw Jews as a bigger enemy than their exploiting factorybosses. The small business owners worked to become the big-time exploiters ofthe poor workers, and felt Jews stood in the way of their goals. These two classeswere fundamentally opposed to each other, but temporarily joined together in apopulist movement, because of their mutual, misguided anti-Semitism. Populistmovements join poor people with the petit-bourgeoisie, against imagined eliteenemies. They speak in the name of the “common man,” but they’re guidedby middle class elements, and screw over poor and working participants in theend. Contemporary examples of populism include the Tea Party, some partsof Occupy Wall Street, and the Nation of Islam. Illuminati theories are oftenpopulist in character. Many populist theories draw on anti-Semitism to identifyan evil elite that runs the world.Many Illuminati theories make use of a document from the early 1900scalled the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Protocols claimed to be a secretdocument written by Jews, about their plans to take over the world. In fact, theywere written sometime between 1897 and 1903, most likely by members of theRussian secret police. At the time, Russian nationalists were trying to preventthe breakout of a Russian Revolution against the Emperor of Russia, calledthe Tsar. Most nationalists were strongly anti-Semitic. They viewed the entiremass movement to overthrow the Tsar as a Jewish conspiracy. The Protocolswere written to help fuel the movement against Jews, in order (they thought) toprevent the revolution.Most of the Protocols was crudely copied from two other books: Dialoguein Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, written by Maurice Joly in 1864, andBiarritz, a German novel written in 1868 by Hermann Goedsche. Despite beingexposed as a fake, the document became widely read in Russia and Europe,and eventually the U.S. too. Because of this, Illuminati theories regularly makemention of Jewish banking groups like the Rothschilds and the Bilderbergs, andportray Jews as a secret group intent on world domination. This is the secondmajor piece of the Illuminati theory. The third is the antichrist.The Third Piece: The AntichristMany Illuminati theorists also talk about the “end of days” and the “markof the beast”. These terms come from a religious movement called ProtestantMillenarianism, which arose in the mid 1800s. Millenarian movements believethe end of the world is coming, and try to get ready for it. Millenarians in the6

1800s developed a complex timeline describing the Second Coming of Christ,with a sequence of important signs. One of the signs was the coming of the“antichrist.” In the Bible, the “antichrist” is sometimes described as a singleperson, and sometimes as many individuals or groups. The “antichrist” issupposed to gain dictatorial power over the world just before Christ’s return.Today, many U.S. evangelical Christians are constantly looking for signs that theantichrist is appearing.In the early 20th century, World War One, the Great Depression, the riseof Fascism, and World War Two, gave Evangelicals many signs that the endwas drawing near. Based on their interpretation of the Bible, evangelicalslooked for signs of growing government power, and individuals with cult-likestatus that might be the antichrist. In the 1920s, U.S. evangelical leader GeraldWinrod claimed that Mussolini, the ItalianFascist leader, was actually the antichrist. Hesaid the League of Nations was a sign ofhis growing world power. “End of days”predictions continued for years afterward. Inthe 1950s, some evangelicals predicted thata new invention called the “computer” wasactually the antichrist. In the 1970s, othersargued that the microchip or laser barcodeswere the “mark of the beast,” destined tobrand individuals in the antichrist’s name.During Obama’s election, many peoplethought he was the antichrist.Gerald Winrod, 1900-1957The figure of the antichrist and the “endof days” has been a main piece of many Illuminati theories since the 1920s.The story works like a game of bingo: believers have a list of signs of the endof the world, and they sit around waiting for them to appear. Every popularpolitical figure, like Obama, can be seen as the antichrist. Every big politicalorganization, like the U.N, can be seen as his growing power. Every developmentin information technology, like implanted microchips, can be seen as a “mark ofthe beast.” Theories like these don’t accurately describe reality. Instead, they getpeople to find evidence for a theory they already want to believe.The Three Pieces Combined Illuminati Theory As We Know ItAll the pieces we’ve talked about so far were combined in the 1920s, a timeof great unrest. Before and after World War I, there were huge working classrebellions against capitalism. Massive workers’ movements with millions ofmembers rocked Germany, Italy, France, England, and even the U.S. Workersfinally toppled the Tsar in the Russian Revolution of 1917, and they triedto establish a communist society. To many people, it seemed like a wave ofsocialist revolution would overturn capitalism, just as capitalism had overturned7

feudalism a century before.Just like before, those who depended on the dominant order opposed therevolutionary movement. They felt the need to explain the growing unrest,which they disliked and couldn’t understand. Just like the kings and queens inthe French Revolution who couldn’t explain the uprisings against them, themodern capitalists turned to Illuminati theories. They didn’t think workers weresmart enough to actually change the world. In 1926, Nesta Webster, an Englisharistocrat, published Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, The Need for Fascism inGreat Britain. Lady Queenborough(also known as Edith Starr Miller),the daughter of a U.S. industrialcapitalist,publishedOccultTheocrasy in 1933. Both writersargued that the revolutionaryfervor sweeping the globe wascaused by a secret conspiracy.Both combined the old Illuminatitheory with new elements.Webster and Queenboroughhyped up the Illuminati moreMilitant German workers attemptthan before: now the Illuminatia revolution in Berlin, January 1919were said to be descendants ofthe ancient Knights Templar, and every secret society that ever existed wassupposedly an Illuminati front group. They also linked Jewish financiers to theIlluminati conspiracy. The Illuminati, they said, were paid by a secret group ofJewish bankers in their quest for world domination. Webster and Queenborough’sconspiracy theories were preached in the U.S. by Gerald Winrod—the sameWinrod described above, who was on the lookout for the antichrist. Winrodwrote a pamphlet in 1935 called Adam Weishaupt, a Human Devil, which drewon Webster and Queenborough’s work. He argued that communism itself wasa Jewish conspiracy, and that the Illuminati conspiracy heralded the coming ofthe antichrist.Webster, Queenborough and Winrod brought together the three pieces ofIlluminati theory under one big umbrella. Their writings established the maincore common to the Illuminati theories we hear today: the Illuminati are a secretsociety, financed by a Jewish banking syndicate, which goes way back to ancientreligious societies, and which aims to rule the world. In some cases, the Illuminatiare portrayed as followers of Satan or the antichrist, aiming to bring about hisrule on earth. Almost every Illuminati theory today builds off this core story.Originally, Illuminati theories were used by elites to try to explain andstop movements. But if these theories were first developed by elites and otherconservative forces, how did they end up being used by poor and oppressedpeople in the hood?8

2. How Illuminati Theory Came to the HoodElites invented Illuminati theory to explain challenges to their power, andtoday poor and working class people in the hood use it to explain our ownoppression. We live in a society that blames individuals for failing to succeed.But people in the hood aren’t stupid: we know we aren’t to blame, and thatthere are outside forces preventing us from living with dignity. For this reason,conspiracy theories and urban legends have been a common feature of oppressedcommunities in the U.S, especially black communities, for decades.In black neighborhoods, people say AIDS was invented by the governmentto kill off black people. People say the government has secret plans to establishmartial law and open concentration camps. They say Church’s Fried Chickenis secretly owned by the Klan, which uses it to destroy black people’s health.These small conspiracy theories and urban legends have floated around blackcommunities for years. It was only a matter of time until the huge conspiracytheories invented in the 1920s put them together in one big Illuminati theory.Without meaning to, the black liberation movement helped this to happen.Illuminati theory came to the hood after the defeat of the black liberationmovement of the 1970s.Conspiracy Theories During Black Power, and After ItAt the height of the rebellions of the 1960s, millions of black people wererebelling against U.S. capitalism. The revolts were huge: in the summers between1965 and 1968, every major city in the country experienced a rebellion. Peoplelooted goods and distributedthem for free. They raidedNational Guard armories andbattled the police in the streets. Asthe struggle developed, millionsof people began to questionwhy black people experiencedoppression and exploitation, andwho the enemies were.Black communists like theNewark riots, July 1967Panthers identified the enemy aswhite supremacist capitalism, and aimed to unite workers of all races against thissystem. Others like Ron Karenga (the inventor of Kwanzaa) fell back on wrongexplanations similar to Illuminati theory. They saw black people as a unitedgroup, regardless of whether they were rich or poor, and they thought all blackpeople were in a war against all white people. The Nation of Islam inventeda myth of black superiority. It taught its followers that whites were createdthousands of years ago by a black scientist named Yakub, in a lab accident.9

Now, with the help of the NOI, blacks were out to regain their rightful place asthe superior race on earth. This story had no basis in science or history, but itprovided one explanation for black oppression, and who the enemy was.Another part of the black power movement turned to anti-Semitism. Manyblack people saw small business owners exploiting black customers, and banksrefusing to loan to blacks, and some of these people were Jews. In “Black Art,”the most famous poem of the Black Arts movement, Amiri Baraka wrote thatblacks needed “dagger poems in the slimy bellies / of the owner-jews.” LouisFarrakhan of the Nation of Islam also embraced anti-Semitic rhetoric at thistime.These black artists and activists mistook the immediate appearance oftheir oppression for the whole thing. Yes, black people were exploited by petitbourgeois business owners and bankers. Yes, many of these folks, (but notall of them) were Jewish. But they exploited black people because they werebusiness owners, not because of their religion. Behind these individuals lay abigger global capitalist system, which exploited black people too. But blackmilitants couldn’t put their finger on this, so instead they blamed the bankersand small shop owners who were in front of their faces. Like in the 1800s, antiSemitism in the 1960s served as a populist myth, which hid class differenceswithin the black community. Poor and working class blacks could have united,and collaborated with other poor people, to oppose the ruling class. They couldhave fought the black business owners who who later became police chiefs andmayors. Instead, they united with black business owners and politicians, againsta made-up “Jew” enemy.By the mid-1970s, the blackliberation movement had beenmostly defeated. The rebellionshad been put down with armedforce, and the revolutionaries weredead or imprisoned. U.S. capitalismadopted reforms to take the steamout of the movement. Black mayorswere elected in cities across theU.S. New careers opened up forblack professionals. There hadBlack Mayor Wilson Goode oversawalways been black business ownersthe police bombing of the blackand middle class people. But legalradical MOVE organization in 1985segregation and white mob violencekept them living with, and servicing, the black working class. Now many of thelegal and social barriers holding down the black bourgeoisie and middle classwere removed. They quickly rose socially and economically, and left the blackpoor behind.Like all capitalists, black capitalists sought profits over people, black or10

otherwise. Like all politicians, black politicians looked after their own interests,and their constituencies came second. The black mayors elected in the 1970ssoon directed the crackdowns on the black movement itself. In Philadelphia,black mayor Wilson Goode oversaw the bombing of the MOVE organization, ablack radical group, in 1985. The actions of the black capitalists and politiciansconfused the black movement, because they thought they had been fightingalongside the black business owners, capitalists, and politicians.Black revolutionaries like Fred Hampton, who might have opposed thesedevelopments, were imprisoned or killed off. As a result, younger generationsweren’t exposed to the idea of class war between black workers and the blackand white ruling class. Other black revolutionaries helped black politiciansrun for office, or became academics, and stopped talking about revolution.Internationally, the national liberation movements in Africa, Asia and LatinAmerica came to an end. The theories of revolution coming from thesestruggles lost popularity. All this left a political void in poor and working classblack communities. Black people had made it into positions of political andeconomic power, but racist oppression and exploitation continued for poor andworking class black people. How could one explain this reality?Illuminati theory flowed in to fill this gap. It was similar to other conspiracytheories that had been used before. It said the black elite had made it becausethey were part of a secret group of rulers, or had cut a deal with the devil. It saidpoor and working class black people were still oppressed, because these rulerswere super-powerful. And the trend deepened in the 1990s.Illuminati Theory in the “New World Order”Illuminati theory resurged all over the U.S. in the early 1990s. BeforeRussia collapsed and the Cold War ended, most people felt big events could beexplained by the conflict between U.S. capitalism and Russian state socialism.Every national liberation struggle in the Third World had to pick betweenthese two sides. But everything changed with the end of the Cold War and thegrowth of globalization. In 1990, George Bush Sr. called the fall of Russia andvictory of the U.S. a “new world order”. This phrase was adopted by a variety ofconspiracy theorists, as an umbrella term to link conspiracy theories together.Conspiracy theorists began to publish “superconspiracy” theories, whichtied every existing conspiracy and urban legend to the Illuminati storyline. Someof these conspiracies involved UFOs, Satanists, or secret government plots tocolonize space. The most famous “superconspiracy” book is Behold a Pale Horse,written by William Cooper in 1991. Behold a Pale Horse brings together a hugerange of different conspiracy theories in one big web, including the Illuminati,Jewish bankers, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, UFOs, and more.Many of these theories were used by poor and working class whites. Whiteswere confused and angry about the impoverishment they experienced withfactory closings and globalization, and the growing status of non-whites in U.S.11

society. They said the government was coming with silent black helicop

free from the British crown. As the social world began to change, people began to think differently. Before the Enlightenment, most people believed the physical world, and the . Some of them wrote books, and this is how the first Illuminati conspiracy theories were created. In 1798, an English scientist and