The Seven Orders of the IlluminatiThe Seven Orders Apply

Education

Researching the Illuminati: a Guide to Sources

Where to start, which sources to trust, and how to test a claim about the Illuminati for yourself.

By Education Department ·

Few historical subjects have more written about them, and less of it reliable. This guide sets out where to start.

1. Start with the dates

The order was active from 1776 until its suppression in 1784–1787. Any document claimed to come from the order should fit those dates and that place — German-speaking Europe.

2. Primary sources

  • The papers seized in 1786 and published in 1787, Einige Originalschriften des Illuminatenordens — digitised copy.
  • The order's letters, now in a critical edition, Die Korrespondenz des Illuminatenordens (2005–2013).
  • The electoral edicts of 1784, 1785 and 1787 — see the archive.

3. Standard scholarship

Le Forestier (1914), van Dülmen (1975), Schüttler (1991) and Wilson (1991) are the essential studies. Full references are in the Bibliography.

4. Sources for the myth

Barruel and Robison (1797) and the American sermons of 1798 are important — but as evidence of how the legend began, not of what the order did.

5. Testing a claim

  • Who says so, and when? A claim first made in the 1790s or later is not evidence of something in the 1770s.
  • Is there a document? Ask for the primary source, with a date and an archive or edition.
  • Does scholarship agree? If the standard studies do not mention it, be cautious.
  • Is it a symbol? The order's documented emblem is the owl of Minerva. The eye and the pyramid are not historical.

6. Online starting points

Encyclopaedia articles such as Wikipedia — “Illuminati” are useful for orientation; follow their references back to the sources above.

Sources

  • Einige Originalschriften des Illuminatenordens (Munich, 1787). Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek record (digitised by the Bavarian State Library)
  • René Le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande (Paris: Hachette, 1914).
  • Richard van Dülmen, Der Geheimbund der Illuminaten: Darstellung, Analyse, Dokumentation (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1975).
  • Hermann Schüttler, Die Mitglieder des Illuminatenordens 1776–1787/93 (Munich: Ars Una, 1991).
  • Reinhard Markner, Monika Neugebauer-Wölk and Hermann Schüttler (eds.), Die Korrespondenz des Illuminatenordens, 2 vols. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2005; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013).
  • Vernon Stauffer, New England and the Bavarian Illuminati (New York: Columbia University Press, 1918). Free full text at Project Gutenberg

ScholarshipOriginal writings 1787Conspiracy theories

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