Illuminati—the plural of the Latin word illuminatus, meaning “enlightened”—is a name that has been in use since the late 15th century and has been applied to various groups since then. Members of these groups claim to be unusually enlightened, with the “light” attributed to a higher source or to an exalted condition of the human intelligence. The doctrines, practices, and rituals of illuminati groups are generally shrouded in secrecy: the Bavarian illuminati adopted a cipher for communicating with each other, while the Rosicrucian order claimed to be bound to secrecy for 100 years from their foundation. The doctrines of these groups had a number of different ideological influences, including Christian gnosticism and Egyptian Hermeticism; the Bavarian group wanted to create a religion of reason. They were generally met by censorship and resistance from the state. Many members of the Alumbrado movement in the early 16th century fell victim to the Inquisition, and the Bavarian group was eventually shut down by the government.
Though the term illuminati has been most closely associated with the 18th-century movement of republican free thought in Bavaria, the word has in fact been in use since the late 15th century to refer to various groups. One of the early illuminati groups was the Alumbrados (“Enlightened Ones”), whose movement began in Spain in the 16th century and had ideological roots in gnosticism. A very early leader was María de Santo Domingo, a prophet and mystic who claimed to converse directly with Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary and was tried under the auspices of the Inquisition. Many Alumbrados later fell victim to the Inquisition, and St. Ignatius of Loyola was charged with having sympathies with the Alumbrado movement. Another early group associated with the illuminati was the Rosicrucians, who came to public attention in the early 16th century but claimed to go back to 1422. Much of what is known about them comes from their earliest extant text, Fama Fraternitatis, first published in 1614, which describes the journey of their founder, Christian Rosencreutz.
