In recent years, major English-language media outlets have published a number of pieces briefly and vividly describing the origins of the Illuminati order. For example, "
What's the real story behind the Illuminati conspiracy?" by the
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), or "
Where Conspiracy Theorists Steal Their Ideas From | Truth Hurts" by
Vice Media. These popular videos argue that modern notions of the Illuminati were merely a joke of
Discordians, passed from the subcultural underground into mainstream culture, thanks primarily to
the Illuminatus! Trilogy It is also claimed that, in fact, this was preceded by the Illuminati Society, which originated in Bavaria on 1 May 245 years ago, but did not survive long and subsequently disbanded.
Remarkably, the
English wikipedia article the Illuminati also marks the beginning of this tradition with the first of May in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, 245 years ago. The same can be said of the
German article the Order of the Illuminati.
However, the
French article on the Illuminati presents a very different picture of the history of the Illuminati, and in the article the description of the Bavarian society is preceded by the following sections:
-
The Alumbrados of Spain;-
The myth of the Illuminati of Spain in France: Rose-Croix and Guérinets;-
The French Prophets;-
The Illuminati of Avignon.The French article begins with the words:
The term illuminati has been used to designate a number of groups (some of whom have claimed the name) more or less marginal and secret, and often in opposition to the political or religious authorities. Although the doctrines of these groups have been varied and at times contradictory, the confusion between them has often been maintained by their opponents. However, the name of illuminati often refers to illuminism, that is to say a religious and philosophical current founded on the belief in an interior enlightenment, directly inspired by god.
That is, modern Francophone sources, unlike Anglophone sources, link the origins of the Illuminati to more ancient groups, noting their history of origin from Spanish communities. This is confirmed by some ancient publications, such as the "
Lexicon Tetraglotton, an English-French-Italian-Spanish Dictionary" by the Welshman
James Howell:
The Spanish Illuminati were called "alumbrados". That said, the Spanish version of the spelling of the word "illuminati" (in both forms, alumbrados and iluminados)
shows an even pattern of mentions of these words among the data digitised by Google.
The alumbrados (Spanish pronunciation: [alumˈbɾaðos], Illuminated) was a term used to loosely describe practitioners of a mystical form of Christianity in Spain during the 15th-16th centuries. Some alumbrados were only mildly heterodox, but others held views that were clearly heretical, according to the contemporary rulers. Consequently, they were firmly repressed and became some of the early victims of the Spanish Inquisition.
The historian Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo found the name as early as 1492 (in the form aluminados, 1498), and traced the group to a Gnostic origin.
Further, according to the work "
Guérinets" of the French literary scholar and Jesuit
Henri Brémond, a little later French Illuminati were also persecuted:
If we are to believe the current of historians, the only ones, who have studied the question, namely Abbé Corblet in 1868, and the Rev. de Salinis in 1918, the sect of the Illuminati, condemned in Seville in 1625, is said to have invaded, around the same time, our Picardy: "This province," says Moreri, "was at first infected with it, because Pierre Guérin, parish priest of Saint-Georges de Roye, began to sow his heresies there, and his followers were called Guérinets; but some new spirituals who were from the same province and who were called Illuminati, having joined them, the names and sects became confused and have since spread in Flanders under the name of Illuminati. They were discovered in 1634. King Louis XIII, full of zeal for religion, wanted to proceed against them with all imaginable severity. The judges of Roye and Montdidier were appointed to investigate, and the prisons were filled with these heretics: this caused so much fear to the leaders of the party that they went into hiding... This unfortunate sect was entirely destroyed in 1635." Shortly after the condemnations of Seville, writes, for his part, the author of the Siècles chrétiens, the very esteemed abbé Ducreux, "a rising sect of fanatics was discovered in France, quite resembling in their doctrine and morals the illuminati of Spain, and which, probably, derived their origin from them. They appeared in Picardy, a province close to the Spanish Netherlands, where the Alumbrados had penetrated. Their leader was... Pierre Guérin... Discovered in 1634, they no longer existed in 1635, as a result of the severe orders given by Louis XIII against them.
The distribution of the French word of "illuminati" (in both forms of spelling of the word, illuminez and illuminés), also shows a fairly even distribution of mentions for over 400 years:
The French Wikipedia article, mentions that the
Camisard, Protestant Highlander peasants of the Cévennes who rebelled against the French king during the War of the Spanish Succession, were also called "Illuminati" by their contemporaries. Some of them emigrated to London under the leadership of
Élie Marion and some to Geneva.
The Illuminati of Avignon, said to have appeared 8 years later than the Bavarian ones, but which English-speaking sources also prefer not to mention. The Illuminati of Avignon were founded by the renounced Benedictine
Antoine-Joseph Perneti and operated in various countries of Europe, including the Russian Empire. In Berlin, Avignon and St Petersburg members of the society were persecuted and the organization was soon dissolved.
In all these cases, the Illuminati were characterized as heretics, heterodox and opponents of the Catholic Church, while in the case of the Camisares, they are outright Protestants, despite the fact that the Camisares had their beginnings in the Cevennes, in the south of Catholic France. For some reason the popular Anglo-Saxon (predominantly Protestant) tradition in modern times prefers not to mention or not to associate all these groups with the term "Illuminati", identifying the historical Illuminati exclusively with the Bavarian order. This may be because modern religious history links the origins of Protestantism to Germany, while the Illuminati societies in question demonstrate that chronologically the origins of such protest ideas originated first in Spain and then in France.
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